Defiant Pearl
by MadameX818
Summary: Sequel to Renegade Pearl: The last thing Yellow Pearl ever expected was to find a new home with the treacherous Crystal Gems after being left behind by her master. What was even more unexpected was that she found herself growing closer to the infamous renegade Pearl. With each other, Yellow learns to cope with her new surroundings and Pearl finds forgiveness within herself.
1. Lost

"I don't like being here, Steven," Connie remarked as she and her companion strode through the dark and desolate Kindergarten Facet Five. The Injectors cast eerie shadows across the breeding grounds, threatening and imposing.

The young female knight's hand instinctually grasped against the handle of her sword, which dangled off of her belt, displaying her deadliness for all to see. Steven noticed and gestured for her to let go. He wasn't ready to see people fighting again . . . especially not after what happened.

"I don't like it here, either, but I made a promise to Garnet," Steven said, extra softly like he was afraid to provoke the long-dead machinery around them. "Besides, it had taken me forever to finally convince them to let me go outside without a chaperone."

"My parents were like that too!" Connie exclaimed. "Trust me; it's a lot worse when it's your first time risking your life in battle, not to mention it was against aliens from another world. My parents thought I was going to die, and I expected it too. If it wasn't for Chrysoprase . . ."

"Yeah, we owe her a lot," Steven nodded, remembering the most colossal fusion he had ever witnessed. It was every Crystal Gem bound together for a last minute strategy: Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Jasper, Peridot, and Lapis. She was enormous, threatening, and far beyond human-like. She was both wondrous and imposing at the same time.

A fusion such as her would have never been made if Yellow Diamond hadn't arrived on Earth with a full fleet of ships, ready to reactivate the Cluster and punish those who failed the original mission. It was widespread panic, seeing all of Yellow Diamond's power unleashed upon Beach City, destroying several parts of town that may never be repaired for all Steven knew. Chrysoprase was the most unstable fusion ever made, behaving more like an animal than an actual Gem and pretty much representing everything Homeworld thought of the Crystal Gems: anarchic, brutal, savage beasts. But her presence was all it took for Yellow Diamond to surrender; her booming voice could make ships fall out of the sky and into the sea and one swipe of her hand could send an earthquake down to deal with them.

It was a terrifying victory but it was one well-earned.

"Pearl's been worried sick lately," Steven said. "Seeing Yellow Diamond again triggered a lot of bad memories for her. It's the same with Jasper and Garnet . . . it was difficult for Jasper to see everything that reminded her of home. Peridot and Amethyst weren't there to see the first war unfold and Lapis was dormant inside of a mirror most of the time. I don't know how to help them."

"Do you think it might happen again? Another war, maybe," Connie asked nervously. She wasn't supposed to be involved in this and yet she was, wholeheartedly Steven might add. It felt wrong, knowing that she was entirely innocent and yet she was fighting for the Crystal Gems' crimes. She should've been protecting her parents, not Steven.

"I don't know," Steven admitted. "Garnet told me that the Diamond Authority wouldn't go down with one strike and it might not be as easy as one fusion next time. The other Diamonds might get involved, wherever they may be. And now it's not even about the Cluster anymore; they're furious with _me_."

"What did you do?" Connie prodded him on. If there was one thing Steven was certain about his friend, it was that Connie hated being left in the dark, like she was a burden.

"They thought Rose Quartz was dead for all these years, and they're confused about whether or not I'm her or not . . . but either way, they don't like me: for both having my mom's gem and being part human," Steven said quietly. It felt strange, bearing out his feelings like this to Connie and not the Crystal Gems. But Connie was much more approachable; she didn't have any attached memories towards Homeworld or Rose Quartz, she was an unbiased opinion. It was easier this way.

"If they ever show up here again, I'll be ready," Connie replied with a fierce look in her eyes.

Steven smiled in response, but now that the whole ordeal was over, he would much rather have his friend Connie back, not this stunning knight in shining armor. The old Connie was a lot less intense and laughed more often. For once, Steven wanted to feel human. He hasn't been getting that a lot lately. Sometimes, he forgot the fact that he was fourteen. He would often look in the mirror and see someone slightly more mature looking back, and then see it vanish and revert back to his chubby-cheeked self. It was confusing: did he want to be more mature or be young?

"What are we looking for again, anyways?" Connie asked.

"Signs of any Homeworld Gems anywhere," Steven answered. "Most of the time, we've been leaving that to Jasper and Garnet, but I wanted to prove to Pearl that I'm perfectly fine with leaving the Temple for missions."

"After seeing Chrysoprase, why would any Homeworld Gem ever stay behind?" the human warrior said as her eyes flitted around their surroundings cautiously, her hand readily grasping on her sword.

"Some sort of revenge mission, maybe out of loyalty, even?" Steven spit out ideas randomly. "The thing is that Homeworld Gems function a lot differently than the Crystal Gems. They would do anything to please their Diamond."

"It's almost admirable," Connie replied and Steven nodded.

"It's too bad that they work for Yellow Diamond, though," Steven said. "They might be perfectly nice Gems deep down."

"Not everyone is like that, Steven," Connie remarked.

"I don't believe that for a second," the Gem hybrid replied stubbornly and it cracked a smile from his friend, which made him laugh as well.

This was what he needed. A simple laugh with his friend Connie, it made him feel like there wasn't any pressure building up on him, making him feel like he was inadequate compared to what his mother did. It reminded him that he was still young, that there was someone who expected him to act young and be happy. It was relieving.

Suddenly, a noise interrupted their conversation. It wasn't threatening; it hardly sounded like a roar or a shot and it definitely wasn't something that could come from a corrupt Gem's mouth, in fact, Steven recognized that sound.

It sounded like . . . crying.

Nevertheless, Connie whipped out her sword, its blade gleaming in the darkness and casting a light on the human's face, showing her suddenly fierce scowl.

"Wait a second, Connie," Steven yelped, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. How fast Connie could go from an easygoing companion to a sharp warrior was almost frightening for him. "Nothing has threatened us yet."

"You said that Homeworld Gems might be ready for us," the female knight retorted. "I'm just being prepared."

"That didn't sound like a threat though," her friend reassured her. "I think it was actually crying."

"What kind of enemy would cry here?" Connie shot back.

"Who said they were our enemy?" Steven snapped and he began to follow the sound.

"Steven!" Connie cried and she immediately set off after him, still holding onto her sword.

The young boy proved to be getting a lot faster lately, as he always a couple steps ahead of Connie, who was also getting of training. She should feel a bit proud of him but she was preoccupied with making sure he wasn't going to get himself killed, like the Diamonds wanted. She loved that Steven cared so much about everyone around him even after what has been happening to him, but sometimes, it felt a lot more foolish than noble. Sometimes Connie wondered if this stemmed from the fact that he could control his age, and therefore, would never have a reason to grow up. What if he decided to never mature at all? Would even be a good thing; watching Steven be an eternal child?

Steven's search finally concluded at a hole that was shielded by the scattered parts of a boulder. And it almost looked like it was hidden on purpose. From behind the rocks, he could hear anguished sobs.

"Hey, don't be sad," Steven whispered. "You're not alone here."

Suddenly, the crying stopped. The young boy raised an eyebrow; he swore that it was this hole he heard the crying from.

"Steven!" he heard as Connie finally caught up to him.

"Connie, there's somebody in this hole, I think they might be trapped inside," Steven cried. He pushed at the boulders blocking the entrance. "Help me."

"What if it's someone dangerous?" the young soldier-in-training blurted out. "If there's really a Gem in there, then I don't think the Crystal Gems would like that."

"It doesn't matter if they don't like us or not, we can't let them get hurt like this," Steven implored.

Connie sighed as she put her sword away. "I know your heart's in the right place and everything but—"

The young boy didn't listen to her, though. He managed to shove one of the barricades away but now was struggling with another one, which was twice his size.

"Connie, come on," he pleaded, donning on the saddest pair of puppy eyes Connie had ever seen. Not even someone like Jasper could resist.

With an exasperated sigh, the female knight took out her sword again and sliced the boulder in half with one sharp strike, which elicited a surprised shriek from whoever was inside the hole. The rock bits crumbled away, revealing a curled-up figure, half shrouded by the darkness.

Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Steven gasped. He recognized the Gem inside.

He had encountered her a long time ago, and he never even gotten the chance to speak to her. And she likely didn't know of him either, unless her superiors had told her. Connie was still standing beside him, bewildered. She never seen this Gem before and had no idea why Steven recognized her. Her eyes widened even more when she saw how much the Gem curled up inside the hole looked like someone she knew.

"Steven, is she a . . ." she couldn't even complete her sentence. Connie was never supposed to see someone like her. She wasn't sure whether or not if she should be awestruck or ready to fight.

All Steven could do was nod in response. He would have never thought that she would end up on Earth.

Why Yellow Diamond of all Gems would even need to bring her Pearl to an invasion was beyond him.

Nevertheless, he reached out a hand towards her. The hole she was hiding in was large enough for him _and_ Connie to crawl inside without having to squeeze for space but he didn't want to push it too far. For all he knew, she would try to attack him. Who knew what this Pearl has been subjected to?

It was strange looking at her in the eyes. It was like looking at Pearl herself but he knew that Pearl— _his_ Pearl—was back at the Temple, possibly twiddling her thumbs, waiting for him to come home.

The resemblance was uncanny: same round eyes, same sleek graceful limbs, same pointed nose, and same porcelain skin that glistened even in a horrid place like the Kindergarten. But she was colored in a different way: in an array of pastel yellows and whites, unlike Pearl's more free-form colors. And while Pearl possessed pale blue eyes that were clouded with a thousand memories, this Pearl's eyes were sharp and haughty.

"Don't you dare touch me!" she shrieked before Steven could lay a finger on her. Her voice was similar to Pearl's as well, but it was much shriller.

"This is strange," Connie whispered. She was looking into the eyes of her sword instructor, but it wasn't the same. No matter how much she looked like Pearl, she wasn't Pearl. This was a Homeworld slave, a piece of the corrupt world that the Crystal Gems wanted so badly to escape and leave behind them.

"No, I'm not here to hurt you," Steven said softly, like Yellow Diamond's Pearl was a hurt child instead of the servant to his greatest enemy.

"Says the one who slashed my safety barrier," the Pearl hissed. "Now it's going to take forever to put it back together."

"Wait, so you put it there yourself?" Steven blurted out. "No one trapped you inside of this hole?"

"Why would they?" the Pearl snapped. "I was completely alone when I regenerated. I needed a safe place to hide from _them_. Now you ruined it!"

"Why are you here?" Connie asked and Steven noticed her hand moving towards the sword dangling from her waist.

"I didn't have a choice," she sobbed. "When my Diamond explained it to me, I thought that it would be a quick mission, that I won't have to do anything and we would take care it. But then our armada was faced off with some kind of . . . _monster_ . . . and before I knew it, the ship I was in was blown out of sky by her roar and sank into the sea. It collided with the bottom of the ocean and I was poofed by the damage. My gemstone floated to the surface and I ended up on another coast. By the time I came to, everyone I knew was gone and the battle was over."

"Why didn't anyone look for you?" Steven asked.

The Pearl bit her lip nervously before answering. "Perhaps they had more pressing matters other than a lost Pearl."

Steven and Connie's faces softened with pity. She was abandoned and lost. Without her master, she didn't know what to do with herself. Now she was stranded on a plant she hardly knew and forced to live there.

"But I'm fine! Leave now, you're not even supposed to know why I was called here! You're only two humans after all! As if you can comprehend the reasons my Diamond needed to come here to this wretched place," she snapped, looking as if she could bite them. But as far as the two Jam Buds knew, she was harmless.

Then the edges of her silhouette suddenly warped and shifted, which caused the Pearl to shriek and crawl further and further into the shadows of her hiding place. Steven recognized that as well; he'd seen it happen to Amethyst and to Jasper.

Her gemstone was cracked.

The Pearl clapped her hands over the damaged stone on her chest and bit back another sob. "This can't be happening," she whispered to herself and it sent another pang of pain down Steven's spine, seeing her in pain like this.

It didn't matter if she belonged to Yellow Diamond or not, she was in trouble and she needed help. He knew what to do and he was going to aid her, even if she didn't want it.

"I know what you need," Steven cried, grabbing the Pearl's arm and ignoring the shrieking that was elicited from touching her. "Please, I can help you."

"How would you know? You're only just a human," she grunted, trying to pull back from his grasp.

"I can't explain it right now, but unless you want to get hurt from this, you need to trust me," Steven said, finally pulling her into the light.

"Steven, are you sure about this?" Connie asked as they dragged an extremely hesitant Pearl towards the Warp Pad.

"It doesn't matter if she belongs to Yellow Diamond," Steven whispered. "She's hurt and she needs someone to help her and I know how. That's all that matters. She's still a Gem, isn't she?"

* * *

 **A/N: You probably weren't expecting this for a sequel to Renegade Pearl. Most of you might've wanted a story where Steven revives Blue with his mom's fountain instead of this, but frankly, I don't feel comfortable with resurrecting character unless it's 100% confirmed that Rose's tears have that capability (I believe there's a difference between cracked and broken and if Rose could resurrect Gems, why couldn't she do that with the countless Gems she lost during the war?). Sorry if this isn't what you wanted from me but I liked the idea. Blue might not be guaranteed to be resurrected in this but she'll definitely be mentioned from time to time so at least you have that to look forward to. And since Steven can communicate with Gem shards, he might have an actual conversation with her (not sure how that would play out, though).**

 **Remember to leave a review if you want more!**


	2. In Safe Clutches

A truly perfect Pearl would not have gone with those two humans.

A truly perfect Pearl would've stayed put in the Kindergarten, waiting for her master.

A truly perfect Pearl would not have let a simple cracked gem faze her.

But then again, if Yellow Pearl still had the right to call herself a perfect example of her kind, would she have been abandoned?

 _No, of course not_ , she chanted to herself, afraid to lose this last bit of sanity that was already slipping from her grasp. _Your Diamond is busy trying to win back the justice and glory Homeworld lost when we lost to the Crystal Gems. She has much more pressing matters than your safety. It wouldn't be different if you really were perfect._

Now she was in the clutches of two human children (as Yellow Pearl learned from the screened reports about Earth) who claim to know the cure for her crack. It was ridiculous. If Yellow Pearl knew how to harm them (and it has been repeated over and over to her, she _couldn't_ ) she would be able to return to her hiding place.

The plan she formulated when she realized her Diamond wasn't ever coming back for her was simple: go to the darkest, most closed-off space you know on Earth, preferably a Gem-built structure, and hide yourself from any harmful thing that walked on this planet's surface. That included the native species (especially humans, who she had been warned to know of Gems' existence), the cruel elements Earth had (lately, water had been pouring from the heavens in an attack), and definitely _the Crystal Gems_.

Simply thinking of them sent shivers down her spine. She could imagine them now: filthy, disgusting savages that turned their back on the beautiful Homeworld Empire. She scarcely knew of them, too afraid to look up the proper information without disturbing her master, and the only things she did know were from tidbits of gossip amongst elite Gems.

Now everything she has worked for is now ruined, thanks to these so-called saviors. She wasn't sure if she possessed the right to call them as such. They were filthy humans for sure, but she was just a mere Pearl, and she herself had no right to call herself a Gem. So if she wasn't a real Gem and neither were these humans, who were truly above who?

"You're in safe hands," the curly-haired human reassured her, whom Yellow Pearl thought of as the harmless one, unlike his companion, who carried a sword. Its hands clasped tightly onto her delicate wrists. At first, she believed the gesture to be malevolent, but then she realized that the human's fingers gently locked around her hands in more comforting fashion, different from the rough grabs her Diamond had done to her.

The two humans led her to the Warp Pad she had used previously to transport herself here. They simply hopped onto the teleportation device like they built it themselves.

"What are you doing?" Yellow Pearl shrieked. "How would you even know how to use this? Only Gems can activate it—"

Her words were interrupted when a flash of bluish white light engulfed them and sent then floating through Warp Space. What was even more frightening was the fact that she wasn't the one to activate it, the human did.

But that was impossible. Warp Pads were specially made so no one without a gem could use it, to prevent organic species from taking advantage of it. How could this be?

What Yellow should've done was escape from their grasp if these so-called "humans" possessed the right circumstances to activate the Warp Pad. But they were still traveling through Warp Space and if she dared tried to run, she would be lost forever in the cold endless abyss outside of their traveling Warp; it would be too foolish.

The sword-wielding human was much less familiar with the physics of Warp-traveling. It rose higher and higher above its companion and Yellow Pearl herself. If she wasn't so terrified of the consequences, she would laugh at its predicament. Nevertheless, its companion grabbed the young dame by its ankles before it could find its way out of Warp Space.

"Thank you, Steven," it said in gratitude. "I'm still not used to Warp-traveling."

"How are you doing this? What's going on? Only Gems are able to activate Warp Pads and you two are clearly not Gems!" Yellow Pearl shrieked.

"Um, well it's really hard to explain," the human called Steven stuttered.

Suddenly, the trio landed at their destination, all tumbling onto the Warp Pad ungracefully since their landing was quite unexpected. The one known as Steven insisted on holding hands and even though Yellow Pearl wouldn't admit it out loud, Steven's touch was rather comforting, if only because she hadn't had much contact since her abandonment.

All around them were tall pillars of twisting, thorny "roses," as Yellow Pearl remembered them being called? They were known as the flora that grew on Earth and they looked splendid amidst the garden, growing in bushes and scattered amongst the earth, fresh dewdrops glistening on their ever-so-delicate petals. Their vibrant pink color was accented by the dappled golden sunlight that illuminated them and reflected off their dew.

But there was no time to admire the garden. Yellow Pearl's arm glitched out again, and she deeply feared becoming hideous like she knew Gems did when their gemstones were cracked. Steven noticed her worry and immediately dragged her deeper into the garden, pass the pillars of roses and into the center of the grove.

Hidden by bushels and bushels of roses was a magnificent fountain, large and solid marble and elegantly carved. It took up much of the space in as the crowning jewel of the garden and was filled to the brim with glistening water that hardly looked like any other water Yellow Pearl had seen.

The fountain was decorated with statues of the same woman over and over, and the cascading water flowed from the largest statue in the center. It depicted a solemn woman with cascades of gentle curls, her eyes closed as roses grew all around her.

That's when Yellow Pearl recognized her.

She never seen the woman in person of course, but she had read about her several times when she needed to. Her name was spoken all around the Homeworld Empire in hushed whispers, her infamy being what scarred the Diamond Authority's reputation.

"Rose Quartz," Yellow Pearl whispered darkly. The two humans who brought her here heard her and their faces immediately paled. She wriggled away from their grasp and cupped the cracked gemstone on her chest before they could do more harm to her. "YOU'RE CRYSTAL GEMS!"

Steven reached for her, trying to speak in a soft tone but undeniably had his eyes widened and a fearful look on his face. "N-no, wait you have to understand—"

Its companion thought differently, however and it drew its sword that dangled from its belt. The young dame grabbed Steven's shoulder and tried to pull its companion away from harm.

"Steven, there's no point," it hissed in its partner's ears but Steven thought otherwise.

"Please, we don't want to hurt you," the unarmed human cried.

"You," Yellow Pearl hissed with her eyes narrowed. "You're the ones who forced me to be here. If it wasn't for you, I would still be on Homeworld, safe and sound with my Diamond. But no! I lost everything because of you! Now look at me! I am not accepting help from such traitors!"

"We didn't want that to happen! We didn't ask for any of this to happen!" Steven cried.

"Yeah," its companion added. "It was Yellow Diamond who attacked this planet!"

"Don't you dare blame my Diamond," Yellow Pearl cried indignantly. "She would never attack this planet without good reason, and if it's to get rid of savages like you—Gems who would dare to shape-shift into humans—then she was in the right!"

The sword-wielding human appeared to be angered but Steven didn't lose his worried expression.

"We're not Gems!" the dame cried.

"Then how did you activate the Warp Pad? How did you know about this place? How did you know how to heal me?" Yellow Pearl rattled off.

"It's really complicated," the one called Steven said nervously. "But we only want to heal you. And don't you want to be whole again?"

Just before Yellow Pearl could shout "No!" at him, her form shifted and glitched again, causing her to yelp as her limbs elongated to less-than-desirable measurements. She looked hideous.

The human called Steven didn't look away in disgust, however, like most Gems would view a malformed Pearl. Instead it took Yellow Pearl by her deformed arm and dragged her to the fountain despite her protests and took her to the edge of the fountain. It scooped up a handful of precious healing liquid and carefully poured it on her damaged gemstone.

The magical essence seeped into the crack of gem and soothed the pain. When the water dripped off her stone, it revealed her life source full and whole again. Her warped limbs returned to their original state and Steven let out a sigh of relief.

"Why did you do that?" Yellow said cautiously, still not trusting the human enough to stand close to him.

"Like I said," Steven reassured her, "I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry for everything that happened to you. We didn't mean for anyone to get hurt, we just needed to keep the Earth safe."

"I'm still not sure how you managed to activate the Warp Pad and carry out the correct procedures to heal me," Yellow Pearl huffed stubbornly. "If you are not Gems like you claim, then how are you involved with the Crystal Gems."

The two humans before her exchanged worried glances. Finally, the one called Steven sighed and lifted up its shirt and revealed a gemstone embedded in its navel, glistening pink but much less vibrant than the sheen on Yellow Pearl's stone.

"That's impossible!" Yellow Pearl shrieked. "You're human AND Gem?! How could that be?"

"Once again, it's hard to explain," Steven said and Yellow immediately grew tired of hearing that.

"You're still Crystal Gems," Yellow Pearl hissed. "Well, you have me now. What are you going to do with me?"

She was prepared for Steven's companion to pull out its sword again and swing it at her. But the human remained still, letting its sword stay sheathed at its side. They simply stared at her, not harming like she expected them to.

"We're taking you somewhere safe," Steven finally said, taking Yellow Pearl gently by the wrists once again. Its hands felt warm and tender, unlike the cold calloused hands of her Diamond.

Knowing wholeheartedly she couldn't fight back, even if she wanted to (she _desperately_ wanted to), she let herself be dragged back to the Warp Pad, anticipating the worst.

* * *

 **A/N: Yes, Yellow Pearl doesn't understand human pronouns, which is why she thinks of Steven and Connie as "it." I believe that Peridot did the same. I'm hoping that Yellow Pearl's transition into a Crystal Gem will end up differently than Peridot and Lapis. And just a heads-up, Jasper is a full-fledged Crystal Gem in this because I couldn't leave her out after Yellow Diamond's invasion. It was impossible to leave her out. Reviews would be very encouraging.  
**


	3. Harsh Discoveries

Lately, the atmosphere of the Crystal Temple has been very tense.

The constant threat of Yellow Diamond looms over the household like a thick fog that refuses to alleviate. And with Pearl's measures of keeping Steven safe from harm, it almost felt like a prison. But luckily, with the young boy's irresistible charms, the front door has been opening up a lot more.

But the Crystal Gems are still worried. And they all go about it in a different way.

Pearl has been wandering around the Crystal Temple in a daze, constantly going in between her room and Burning Room and several others without even realizing it. The past she had been so adamant about keeping secret has finally caught up with her and it's been difficult to even go outside without waiting for some sort of imaginary attack raining down from the sky.

Amethyst, being herself as usual, kept insisting on going outside and being the Gems they were before any of Yellow Diamond's attacks occurred. Perhaps she was a bit more relaxed because she had never faced Yellow Diamond prior to the invasion. Or maybe being casual and aloof about it was her way of alleviating the stress.

Garnet was kept together as always . . . but there were times where the other Crystal Gems swear they heard her mumbling to herself in different voices. But she still remained the calm, collected leader she was, even though her actions might say otherwise.

Peridot refused to leave the barn and spent her time trying to master her newfound metal-manipulation powers. Now she could take apart an entire television set with her mind alone (unfortunately it didn't mean she could put it back together) and levitate numerous swords. One could say this was her way of trying to contribute to the team, to protect the others better this time. Yet as impressive as her abilities were, no one could ever be intimidated by someone so small and frail. It frustrated her immensely.

Lapis exercised her freedom as much as she could, making up various excuses to explore the surrounding area, stretching out her wings and sometimes disappearing for hours at a time. It was clear that she wanted to savor whatever freedom she had left before it would all be taken from her . . . again.

Jasper was the one who would often take care of missions nowadays. She insisted on sparring with the others often and refused to take no for an answer. She needed action, something to take out all of her frustration with, something to dull all the memories that had resurfaced lately. What was worse was that she treated Steven and Connie even rougher than before during training sessions. She wanted to be prepared for anything.

What Steven was going to bring them would definitely end up pushing them over the edge.

"Careful," Steven said as he led his newfound companion off of the Warp Pad. "We don't want to disturb the others."

"Well, I don't need the torture to begin sooner than I expected," Yellow Pearl huffed.

"For the last time, we _did not_ take you as prisoner," Connie snapped impatiently. She turned to Steven before adding, "Are you sure she's supposed to be a Pearl? She seems . . . different than what I expected a servant to be like."

"I don't know too much about Pearls," Steven admitted. "Pearl doesn't like to talk about it."

Yellow Pearl took a quick scan of her surroundings before saying, "If this is some sort of prison, it's not very well-guarded."

"This isn't a prison, this is my home," Steven insisted, grabbing Yellow Pearl's hand and leading her around, pointing to various places. "There's the living room, the kitchen, my bed, the bathroom, and the Temple."

Overwhelmed and confused, Yellow Pearl yanked her arm free from Steven's warm grasp and cried, "If you didn't bring me here to interrogate me, then what's the point of taking me here at all?"

"Well, I'm not letting you live in the Kindergarten," the young boy replied in an almost frustrated tone. "You deserve to feel comfortable after everything that happened. We didn't mean for you to get stranded here after the attack. You don't have to live in a hole for the rest of your life."

"The Kindergarten might not have been . . . suitable for a Gem like me, but there is no way I'm going to consort with the enemy after what you have done not to me, but to the Diamond Authority," Yellow Pearl spat out bitterly, crossing her arms.

"Hey, he's trying to be nice to you," Connie cried. The dark-haired dame shielded Steven from Yellow Pearl before she could berate him further. "The least you could do is being grateful after we healed your gem."

"I could've handled that myself," Yellow Pearl stuttered, clearly losing confidence.

"No, you wouldn't," Steven said, still not feeling angry after everything Yellow Pearl said. "I've seen what happens to Gems when their stones crack and it's not good. So you're very lucky that we found you in time."

"Hey, Steven," a familiar rough voice emerged from the kitchen. Amethyst carried several snacks, clearly pilfered from the garbage. "What's all the commotion about—"

Her words abruptly stopped when she saw the utter stranger standing before Steven, the almost perfect mirror image of Pearl in a yellow hue instead of white. She had seen her before as well and judging from the way she immediately summoned her whip, she did not have kind words to share with her.

"Steven, what are you doing with her? Stay back!" she cried as she covered both children.

"Amethyst, don't hurt her," the young boy cried.

"That's what you always say," the purple Quartz said through gritted teeth.

"Oh my stars, what in the galaxy are you?" Yellow Pearl cried.

"I should be asking that to you," Amethyst yelled. "Man, it's creepy how much you look like Pearl."

Surprisingly, the Homeworld Gem did nothing to counteract Amethyst's threat. She immediately curled up into a ball on the floor and whimpered, "Please, I beg you, give me mercy, great warrior."

"Great warrior," Amethyst said with a raised eyebrow as her whip dematerialized when it was clear Yellow Pearl wasn't going to fight back. "Thanks for the compliment but that's pretty strange coming from the enemy."

The Pearl looked up to see the unarmed Quartz and stood up once again, trying to regain her lost dignity. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Well, I could bring you to Jasper for her to deal with you," Amethyst suggested nonchalantly. Upon hearing Steven and Yellow Pearl's collective gasp, she shrugged and added, "But you didn't do anything to hurt Steven . . . yet."

"I wouldn't harm him even if I wanted to—and trust me, I really do!" Yellow Pearl cried.

The next course of action Amethyst took surprised Yellow Pearl: she burst out laughing. "You even screech just like Pearl! This is both creepy and hilarious at the same time!"

"There's another Pearl here?" Yellow Pearl gasped. "Who does she belong to?"

"First of all, she doesn't belong to us," the purple Quartz rebuffed. "Second, I can tell she won't be happy to see you."

"Wait, why not?" Steven asked.

"Other Pearls are a touchy subject for our Pearl," Amethyst said tentatively, scratching her hair. "Steven, why did you bring her here?"

"Connie and I found her in the Kindergarten with a cracked gem, we couldn't just leave her there," the Gem hybrid cried.

"But then why would you try and bring her to the Crystal Temple?" Amethyst retorted, "Especially with Garnet, Pearl, and Jasper around?"

"I couldn't bear to see her so lost," the boy admitted. "She didn't come here by choice, Amethyst. She was left behind by Homeworld and was all alone in the Kindergarten. I couldn't just _abandon_ here there!"

Moments of silence passed before Amethyst spoke again. "Listen, I feel bad for her too, but it's not like the rest of the Gems are going to feel the same."

"Why not, I mean if it happened for Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper, shouldn't we let her stay here too?" Steven implored.

Before the purple Quartz could respond, the Warp Pad came to life again, this time bringing in Pearl, Jasper, and Garnet. At the sound of the device activating again, the Homeworld Pearl shrieked and hid behind the stairs.

"Oh Steven, you came back home!" Pearl cried as she wrapped her arms around the Gem hybrid. He felt tears forming in his hair as his surrogate mother continued to embrace him.

"You didn't have to worry that much, he was with me," Connie insisted as she pulled the two of them apart.

Jasper narrowed her eyes as she looked around the house. "Something doesn't feel right. I can sense something."

"It's nothing," Steven blurted out, beginning to nudge the bulky warrior towards the Temple door. "You should go before you start losing valuable time you could've spent training."

"Steven, don't lie to us," Garnet scolded as she began to head towards where Yellow Pearl was hiding. The Homeworld servant tried to muffle her breathing but no matter how silent she was, she couldn't beat future vision.

Garnet's visors nearly fell off as she pulled the Homeworld Gem out from beneath the stairs by the arm. The yellow Gem flailed and shrieked at the sight of Garnet, whom she most likely never saw a Gem like her before.

"Who are you and what's your business here?" the magenta fusion demanded as she clasped onto the former servant's arm tighter, leaving her dangle uncomfortably in the air.

"Pearl Facet-8Y7D, Cut-2SE," she gulped.

"Garnet, wait," Steven shouted as the fusion summoned her gauntlet. "She's completely harmless!"

"Yeah, put her down," Amethyst reinforced surprisingly.

The Pearl toppled to the floor ungracefully as the fusion released her from her hold. Grumbling to herself, Yellow Pearl smoothed her delicate outfit and got up, only to lock eyes with another pair almost identical to hers, except in a shade of pale blue.

"It's you!" Pearl shrieked, suddenly summoning her spear. "You belonged to Yellow Diamond!"

Yellow Pearl's eyes widened even more at the sight of another one of her kind wielding a spear. "N-no, that impossible, I was told that you were only a legend!"

"What do you mean?" Pearl cried, pointing the end of her spear at Yellow Pearl's throat.

"I've heard of other Pearls talking about it before," Yellow Pearl stuttered. "A legendary Pearl who rose up against her master and became a warrior; I tried to search it up myself but no reports ever came up."

"Well, as if Homeworld is ever going to leave that kind of information out in the public eye," Pearl huffed indifferently.

"Disgusting," Yellow Pearl muttered under her breath.

"What did you just call me?" Pearl shouted again, suddenly growing agitated. In the background, Garnet placed a protective arm around Steven and Jasper did the same for Connie and Amethyst.

"Don't you see? It's because of you that so many Pearls are being put under even more pressure than before! I've heard that ever since you abandoned your master for another, elite Gems no longer trust their Pearls to be loyal! Now they shatter their Pearl at the drop of a hat if they thought we were rebelling," Yellow Pearl accused.

"I did what I did to make a better name for all Pearls!" Pearl retorted, shocked at such a statement. The grip on her spear tightened even more.

"No, you did what you did to make a better name for yourself and now the rest of us Pearls have to suffer for it," Yellow Pearl spat back, almost on the verge of spitting in the other Pearl's face. And with the smug look on her face, she didn't regret a thing she said.

Through clenched teeth and an exasperated growl, Pearl raised her spear, ignoring the protests of Steven in the background, and sliced through her fellow Pearl in the torso, causing a quick and effective poofing.

* * *

 **A/N: Relax, that's not the end of the story. Yellow will regenerate; it's just going to take a while for Pearl to withstand her usual snarky behavior.**


	4. Threads of Memory

"Pearl, how could you?" Steven cried as Pearl scooped up her latest victim and formed a bubble around the pristine gemstone.

"Steven, how could _you_ take in a loyal servant of Yellow Diamond's and bring her to the Temple?" the white Gem retorted, beginning to march her way towards the Temple door.

"Honestly, don't treat it like it was the first time he's done that," Amethyst drawled, nudging Jasper in the arm, which earned her a chastising slap on the shoulder.

"No offense ma'am, but I think poofing her was a little cruel," Connie said tentatively, not wanting to get on her mentor's bad side. It was clear that this seemed personal to Pearl. "I mean, she was definitely harmless."

"And I thought Crystal Gems were above attacking defenseless Gems," Jasper said sarcastically, raising a playful eyebrow.

"Do not make me list all the things you've done to _us_ , Jasper," Pearl snapped. She sighed in frustration before continuing. "Steven, you hardly know anything about Homeworld and how they treat Pearls. This Pearl here belonged to _Yellow Diamond_ , of all Gems, and that's enough to constitute her as dangerous."

"But, I don't understand why you would be so cruel to her if you are of the same Gem type," Steven rebutted. "I mean, didn't you two go through the same things? Shouldn't that be enough for you to feel bad for her?"

"Steven, if there's one thing you must understand, it's that I am much different than other Pearls," the pale warrior explained. "And I have long known that Homeworld thinks of us as little more than pretty dolls. The other Pearls . . . fail to see that. It's obvious this one right here is still loyal to her Diamond and we can't have someone like her run free around the Temple."

"But we can change that!" Steven cried.

"Forget it, Steven," Jasper interrupted, grabbing the young Quartz by the shoulder. "There's no use defending someone you hardly know or understand. Besides, I think we already have enough Gems living here anyways. We definitely don't need _another_ Pearl."

Letting out an exasperated sigh at Jasper's remark, Pearl activated the Temple door and headed for the Burning Room, leaving Steven to be comforted by the rest of the Crystal Gems.

 _He doesn't understand_ , Pearl thought to herself. _He doesn't know how Pearls function and what their masters do to them. He doesn't realize that not all Pearls see themselves as slaves._

It was still strange carrying a bubble containing a Gem of her kind inside. She couldn't help but stare at the gemstone's smooth surface and perfect round shape and compare it to her own.

 _As you can see, that's a perfect example of a true Pearl, something you could never live up to_ , a harsh familiar voice echoed inside Pearl's head. She shook the memory out of her head.

Her master was long dead. She has no reason to think of her when she had Steven, Garnet, and the rest to keep her steady.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot let you roam around Earth, a place you never wanted to reside in anyways," Pearl told the now-dormant Gem in her hands. "And I cannot let you be around Steven and give him the wrong idea about Pearls such as ourselves." She paused before continuing. "He might think different about me."

She imagined the Gem in her hands replying, a near-identical copy of her voice with a few differences. It made her shudder thinking about how much she resembled the servant of Yellow Diamond.

"I am not like you," Pearl continued, practically mimicking a conversation with the bubbled Gem. "Nor will I ever accept that we are of the same Gem type. I am different. Unlike you, I have long realized that Homeworld has been feeding us lies, making us believe we have purposes when in reality; it couldn't be farther than the truth. There's no reason for you to feel special at all. No one on Homeworld has any right to. You are just another blind little subordinate."

Saying those words out loud made Pearl bite her lip in shame. Those were the words she wished she could say to Peridot, Lapis, and Jasper before they became allies. And each and every one of them proved her wrong, thanks to Steven. As hopelessly idealistic as he was, there had been several times where his sheer power of hope and love seemed to trump Pearl's logic and strategy.

There was the time he protected them from Jasper, despite their efforts to push him away.

There was the time he defeated the Cluster with his capacity for love and understanding.

And all the times he liberated an enemy and made them into people worth saving from harm.

But this was different. This was personal. He couldn't understand what this meant to Pearl.

"I find it quite a miracle you didn't attack Steven right away," Pearl added, wanting to find some way to lighten the mood. She stopped smiling when she came to a realization. "Oh wait, of course you didn't. You wouldn't know how. They never taught us. They were determined to make sure we were always dependent on them for protection, so we wouldn't be able to survive without them. That's why I needed so much training."

Another heavy pause before continuing; the silence was nearly unbearable.

"What did Yellow Diamond do to you to make you so insufferable?" the spear-wielder asked, even though it was certain there was no way to receive an answer. "You have no right to believe she would come back for you. You mean nothing to her. That's what the Diamonds do: make you feel important, special, needed, in order to keep you in line."

All this talking made it so tempting to pop the bubble in her hands just so she could repeat everything she said and give her fellow Pearl a reality check. But wouldn't that be certainly hypocritical of her?

Finally, Pearl stepped into the Burning Room, where several bubbles, containing former Gems, were suspended in the air, almost like a museum of those who fought in the Rebellion and those caught in the crossfire: a whole treasury of victims.

"I wish I could say sorry," Pearl muttered to herself, still not sure what was the point of having this pretend conversation. "But it's for the best. Steven might feel a bit disappointed for a while, and honestly, doing that to him certainly hurts, but it's not like he would be stuck on this forever. And there are times where he is wrong. I know that I have been wrong—several times—so he'll recover from this. And it's not like you really enjoyed his company anyways, which is sort of shameful, because he's absolute angel. So I'm not sorry. Why should I feel sorry?"

But before she could properly leave the bubble behind, Pearl's eye caught onto another glistening bubble, which has been living inside the Burning Room for who knows how long. Unlike most of the Gems contained here, there was no hope for this one. She didn't even have the liberty of being whole, instead being split apart into a million pieces and lost for eternity.

The memory of Blue being alive and whole was nearly too much for Pearl to bear.

Despite knowing she was gone, the renegade couldn't help but feel her presence having a true impact on the situation.

"If you were here, you would take Steven's side, wouldn't you?" Pearl said softly, eyes welling with tears. She bit her lip to keep herself from losing it entirely. "But this is different. She's different. I don't think I can bear having another Pearl around here without being reminded of you."

 _It's not fair to trap her in a prison like that._

"She doesn't belong here," the white Gem insisted, practically arguing with someone who she knew was incapable of speaking back. "She doesn't want to be here. She could ever be happier inside of a bubble."

Even Pearl knew that was exceedingly cruel to say.

"It's not like you would even like her," Pearl kept defending herself, even though there was no point, since she could've left a long time ago. "She's so arrogant and deluded, thinking that her Diamond values her when it couldn't be farther from the truth."

The solemn silence from Blue's bubble seemed to constitute as a response in Pearl's eyes.

 _She's still a Pearl, isn't she?_

Tears began to fall down Pearl's face, and despite being alone, she felt embarrassed for being so emotional.

"What if she said was true?" Pearl whispered meekly, choking back more dramatic sobs. "What if I didn't improve the reputation of Pearls like I thought I did? I thought what I did might inspire other Pearls like you were inspired, but all I did was make them resent me. She said that now those who own Pearls now treat them worse then I remember. I thought that what I did changed how Homeworld functioned but all I did was make it worse. I'm no inspiration like I thought I was, like you and Steven think I am. All I am is an example of a defect . . . like my master said I was."

 _But perhaps her opinion can change if you give her a chance_.

"Her attitude is quite insufferable, though," Pearl chuckled, heaving back her sobs and attempting to laugh again.

 _Look at Peridot. Look at Lapis. Look at Jasper. At this point, wouldn't it be foolish to deny Steven's power?_

"I'll leave it to Steven to take care of her," Pearl replied to no one in particular. "But I'll be the judge if she truly stays."

* * *

"I just don't understand why Pearl would treat another Pearl so badly," Steven sighed.

"It seems pretty personal," Connie replied. "And besides, we can agree that she and Yellow Diamond's Pearl are very different. Didn't you hear what she said about our Pearl?"

"Peridot said worse stuff," the half-Gem countered. "I just thought since the two of them were both Pearls, they could at least bond over being Pearls. Yellow Pearl didn't even hurt us like Jasper and Peridot did. She only needed somewhere to stay."

Suddenly, the two Jam Buds were interrupted by the sound of the Temple door coming to life and revealing Pearl once again, standing stiff and orderly as always.

"Hey, did you at least give her a safe little spot in the Temple?" Steven asked, not holding a grudge against her, which only made the former servant's heart melt even more.

"Steven," the sword-training mentor said slowly. "I know it's a bit surprising, but after a little bit of reasoning, I decided that after doing it so many times before, it wouldn't be fair if I denied you another chance to give another lost Gem some tender love. So . . . here she is."

Placing it ever so gently in the young boy's hands was the un-bubbled gem of Yellow Diamond's Pearl.

"Really, you'll let me do it?" Steven whispered with starry eyes.

"As long as you don't let her get in the way of training," Pearl replied sternly. "I think we can let her stay. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to organize my sword collection."

Connie raised an eyebrow as her mentor quickly left for her room, without even bothering to stay to see Yellow Pearl regenerate. It was almost as if despite giving them permission to reform her, she didn't want to see her

"Um, aren't you a little shocked that she changed her mind so quickly?" the dark-haired dame asked.

"As long as we're allowed to give her a second chance, it doesn't matter," the young Quartz replied. "What should matter is how long we have to wait for her. When Pearl needed to regenerate, she took two whole weeks—"

The gem in her hands suddenly burst to life, enveloping itself in a warm glow as it levitated above Steven and Connie's heads and spirals of lights emanating from it formed into smooth limbs.

"Well, would you look at that?" Steven said in surprise as Yellow Pearl appeared once more.


	5. No Other Choice

"Don't worry, my Diamond, I am here and ready for—oh my stars, why won't this nightmare end?" Yellow Diamond's Pearl's face immediately soured when she realized she was once again faced with the supposed "Steven" and his protector.

"Welcome back," the young boy cried with open arms. "Man, you regenerated a lot quicker than Pearl usually does."

"Why would there be any reason to halt my reforming process?" Yellow Pearl asked dubiously. "Unless my master requested a different form for me, I need to return to her quickly so I can continue to serve her."

"Wait, so your master forces you to change your form whenever she feels like it?" Connie blurted out.

"The only times I'm required to regenerate is when my Diamond wishes to try out a new style," Yellow Pearl answered matter-of-factly.

Her easygoing tone horrified both Steven and Connie, learning that Yellow Diamond destroyed her Pearl's physical form almost on a daily basis.

Yellow Pearl's eyes darted around the room again, flustered and confused. "I swear I was in this room with the renegade Pearl earlier."

"You won't have to worry about Pearl hurting you anymore," Steven reassured her, placing a hand on her arm. "She was just a bit startled when she saw another Pearl. She hasn't been around her own kind in a while."

Yellow Pearl only sniffed in response. "I do not trust her around me. She's a hazard to all Pearls."

"What you said about Pearls on Homeworld . . . is that really true?" Steven asked tentatively. He didn't expect Pearl's infamy to spread to such drastic proportions. He imagined all those manufactured servants, living in fear of their masters because of Pearl.

"I remember masters mention something about a 'renegade Pearl' being an example of a defective Pearl and that those who even step a foot out of line are compared to her before they're shattered," Yellow Pearl reminisced. "And now that I know she is actually real, I don't know what to believe anymore. Is that why you brought me here? So the renegade can torture me?"

"Why won't you understand?" Steven cried. "We didn't bring you here to torture you! We brought you here because you were separated from your master and in need of help! You don't have to be afraid of us!"

"You are the ones responsible for my predicament," Yellow Pearl spat out. "If it wasn't for you, then I would be safe at home instead of here on this wretched planet!"

"You don't think we're sorry?" the young Quartz retorted. "We didn't know that you would be caught between this. We didn't mean for anyone to be hurt. We only needed to protect this planet from harm, because that's what the Crystal Gems do. We don't have anything against you."

"We're giving you a choice here," Connie added. "Either you stay with us and we offer you protection or you go outside and face the rest of your life without us. Remember this planet is swarming with corrupted Gems and wild animals and merciless weather conditions."

Yellow Pearl's eyes flitted towards the window, looking at the unfamiliar, unruly land that the Crystal Gems called their domain. There was no way she would be able to survive on her own. Even if she did learn how her new environment functioned, it wouldn't change the fact that she was a Pearl without her master. Now that she thought about it, it was Yellow Diamond who protected her from the harsh outside world and kept her from harm. With her, she never had to worry about being in danger.

Now she was alone. The only Gems she was still in contact with were the very Gems at fault for her abandonment. But she couldn't face the cruel mistress that was Earth without someone to guide her. The very idea of a Pearl taking care of herself was preposterous.

She couldn't do this by herself. She had no one else to turn to.

"Fine then," she sighed in defeat. "I accept your truce. As long as you provide me protection from lethal forces, I won't dare try to harm you. It's not like I have any other choice."

Despite the obvious disdain in her voice, Steven accepted this with glee. He lunged forward and hugged her, his arms barely able to wrap around her waist. Yellow Pearl didn't take to kindly to the sudden physical contact, lurching away and shrieking in surprise.

"Is this supposed to be an attack?" she squealed, taking several steps back as she attempted to pry the young boy off her knees.

"It's called a hug," Connie explained, giggling at Steven's gleeful smile and Yellow Pearl's discomfort.

Steven finally released himself from the startled servant with a smile, which relieved Yellow Pearl immensely. Once the Gem had time to catch her breath and settle down, he asked, "Well, what you should we call you? Having two Pearls in the house is going to be confusing."

"Hey, what is she doing out of that bubble?" a gruff voice interrupted their conversation. Steven turned to see Jasper approaching Yellow Pearl menacingly, followed by a suspicious Amethyst who carried with her a submarine sandwich.

"Pearl changed her mind and released her," the young Quartz explained.

"That doesn't sound like Pearl," Amethyst commented with a raised eyebrow, but didn't dwell on the thought for too long, instead shifting her attention towards the sandwich in her hands.

"Well, we're discussing what we should call her," Steven continued. "There's no point in having two people in the Temple called 'Pearl.'"

"Hey, I have an idea," Amethyst suggested with her mouth still half-full of sandwich, which disgusted Yellow Pearl. "What about the name Lemon? She's yellow and has the personality of a lemon."

"What?" Yellow Pearl shrieked, vehemently shaking her head. "I may not know what a lemon is, but I refuse to be called that!"

Amethyst simply shrugged in response, muttering softly, "I don't care; I'm still calling you Lemon."

"We'll stick to Yellow for now," Connie said firmly.

Yellow Pearl scoffed in disgust at her new nickname. It felt so childish and uncreative. What felt even stranger was the fact that she would no longer be called "Pearl" or "Yellow Diamond's Pearl" which were the names she was called previously. Having a name that didn't pertain to her master was almost foreign to her, even more so unsettling.

"Can we really trust having her around?" Jasper snarled, which made Yellow squeak and take a few steps back. The presence of two Quartzes made her hair stand on end, knowing how they often treated Pearls on Homeworld.

"You're still here, aren't you?" Amethyst quipped. The orange Quartz glared down at her, which only caused her to chuckle and add, "Just kidding, sis."

"I'm serious," Jasper said firmly, crossing her arms. "If there's one thing Pearls are known for on Homeworld, its devotion."

"Don't talk about her like she's not standing next to you," Connie snapped. "It's really rude."

"I don't mind," Yellow insisted, sweating profusely. "She can say whatever she wants." She squeaked once more when Jasper's gaze focused on her once more. "Please don't hurt me," she pleaded.

"Steven, can we have a minute alone, please?" Jasper asked.

"Okay," the young Quartz replied, taking the elder Gem by the hand and heading towards the kitchen, leaving Amethyst and Connie to deal with a still-hysterical Yellow.

* * *

"Steven, do you really know how Pearls behave on Homeworld?" Jasper asked.

"No, not really," the boy admitted. "I mean, Pearl never liked talking about Homeworld and the only information I got was from Peridot. I know that they serve elite Gems though and weren't allowed to do anything outside of that. Wait a minute; have you ever owned a Pearl, Jasper?"

The orange Quartz threw her head back and chuckled. "Trust me, Steven; I was never interested in owning one. The Diamond Authority kept offering me one, though. But I always thought of them as too frilly and fragile for my needs." She kept chuckling, but then stopped briefly to quickly add in. "Never mention that to Pearl."

Steven nodded and said, "Well, Yellow never posed much of a threat to me and Connie in the Kindergarten. And I can't bear to have her run around Earth, all lost and confused. It wasn't her fault she's here. It was ours. Don't you know how that feels?"

Briefly rolling her eyes at Steven's sensitivity, Jasper responded, "What are we supposed to do when her master returns and she tries to run back to her side? And there's no doubting it, Steven, she will do that."

"But Yellow Diamond treated her like an object," Steven cried, "Why would she want to go back to serve her again?"

The bulky Quartz only shrugged, "That's what she was taught to do. It's a natural instinct for her to serve. And unlike Pearl, she doesn't know any other way to live. She might not even resent her old life like Pearl does. She probably doesn't even realize that Yellow Diamond might not care about her the way she does."

"Actually, that sorta does sound like Pearl," Steven admitted. He knew Pearl adored him but Garnet and Amethyst did tell him that after Rose left, she couldn't figure out how to function without her. And no matter how deep Pearl's love ran for Rose, she still chose Greg over her. The love Rose had for Pearl had been different than what the Pearl would've preferred.

"Look, it probably would be cruel to put her back in that bubble after we promised her freedom," Jasper explained. "But it's not like Yellow would know what to do with freedom. I doubt she would even consider it to be something good."

"She still deserves to be happy, though," Steven replied, "Even if she doesn't realize it."

"Fine, if I can't change your mind, then you should go for it," Jasper sighed. "But remember one thing, no matter what, she would still miss her master."

"Then I'm going to have to find her something else to keep her sane," Steven said, still confident in his abilities.

* * *

 **A/N: You have no idea how long I've been waiting to slip in that lemon joke into the story. It's obvious that Yellow is different than Blue which means that this might end up being longer than Renegade Pearl, but that's all good in my book.**


	6. The Gift of Free Will

The first thing Steven's bleary eyes took in when he first woke up was a pair of bright round eyes staring back at him expectantly. For a moment, he felt ready to shout out "Pearl!" but instead shouted out a different name, but with the same amount of surprise and embarrassment as he would had it been really Pearl.

"Yellow! Were you sitting by my bed all night?" Steven shouted, nearly falling out of the bed as he scrambled to sit up.

The Homeworld Pearl tilted her head sideways in confusion. "I was waiting for you to instruct me otherwise. But all you did when you emerged from the 'thinking chamber' was simply fall into these resting quarters and never seemed to utter anything else. I didn't want to leave in case you needed for something else."

"But you don't understand," Steven cried out as he climbed out of his bed. "You don't need to wait for me to give you an order."

"Do you expect me to know what you want, then?" Yellow asked, almost desperately. It appeared as if Steven's opinion was everything to her, which was strange since earlier she was all-too-prepared to flee from his hospitality.

"Why do you want to take orders so badly?" Steven cried out, suddenly remembering what Jasper said about Pearls not knowing the first thing when it came to having their own free will. He didn't want Yellow's words to prove her right. He always thought that Pearls suffered at the hands of their masters and desired freedom. But Yellow seemed to crave the idea of having a master again.

"Do you expect me to take after the Renegade?" Yellow asked hesitantly. "I'm not sure what you expect from me? Can you elaborate?"

At this point in the morning, Steven felt too exhausted to try and explain the concept of freedom to Yellow, considering he didn't even have time to wipe the sleep-crust out of his eyes. Maybe Jasper was right and shouldn't question the things plaguing Yellow's distressed mind.

But he was still determined to make her comfortable on Earth. He felt guilty after everything that happened to Yellow because of her Diamond. She was never involved in the war or even the recent invasion, only a servant caught in the crossfire.

It wasn't fair to leave her to die, especially since it seemed that Yellow might've gone mad eventually if Steven and Connie never found her. Perhaps with enough time, Yellow would realize she would be happier free instead of by her Diamond's.

Just when he was about to shut the bathroom door, he realized Yellow had followed him all the way from the bedroom, staring expectantly at him to let her in.

"Wait, I need some privacy for a while," Steven said tentatively, embarrassed at the idea of having yet _another_ Gem watching him pee. "In fact, you might want to wait in another room."

"But what if you need to request something as you are working in privacy?" Yellow asked.

"You don't need to worry about that!" Steven cried, anxious to get her to leave him in peace. "Just wait until I'm fully ready."

Eventually, Steven learned something new about Yellow: she seemed to possess no capacity of shame. Even as he changed from his pajamas to his casual wear, she never took her eyes off of him, not blushing or turning away in disgust for a second. In fact, she was completely comfortable watching him reveal his more "human" parts. She might've blinked in confusion for a few moments but nevertheless remained unflustered and diligent.

It bothered Steven immensely though. He tried to change in a more private area, but Yellow didn't seem to comprehend privacy either, calling out his name in worry if he was obscured from her vision. It almost reminded him of Pearl in a way, but she still learned to have her own boundaries when it came to watching Steven. Yellow, on the other hand, felt absolutely no visible shame or embarrassment.

"Aren't you a little, um, embarrassed watching me all the time?" Steven asked nervously.

Yellow remained confused. "I have seen all Gems during their worst moments and unless they request me to leave, I have no shame in watching them. They know I cannot speak against them nor will question them in any way. And I know that they would expect me to completely comfortable. A good Pearl is one that can endure the most horrific mess without ever shifting away from proper protocol."

Her lengthy response left Steven both horrified and uncomfortable. What other kind of horrors were Pearls forced to endure if they weren't allowed to possess any kind of dignity for themselves?

"Well, you won't need to follow those kind of rules here," the young Quartz said nervously as he approached the kitchen.

"I don't understand," Yellow inquired. "Is there a different set of rules and regulations for me to follow?"

"No, there isn't," Steven blurted out. "Trust me, I don't expect you to do anything other than be your own Gem."

Those words were definitely lost on Yellow but she still complied with Steven's wishes. "Of course," she nodded, and it also occurred to Steven that Yellow also possessed Pearl's transparent lying capabilities.

* * *

The rest of the Crystal Gems emerged from the Temple and set up Steven's breakfast and Yellow was only forced to watch, Pearl not wanting her anywhere near the kitchen. At first, it almost seemed like Yellow would snap at Pearl and definitely wished to talk back at her, but once Jasper agreed with Pearl, Yellow lost all of her former smugness and immediately complied with Pearl's—and most likely Jasper's—wishes.

In fact, Yellow seemed to fear almost all the Gems in the Crystal Temple—especially Garnet since she couldn't even figure out what kind of Gem the fusion was and was too fearful to ask—except Pearl. When it came to the infamous renegade, Yellow was all too prepared to start their argument prior to her bubbling. But the presence of the rest of the Crystal Gems prevented her from doing so. Sometimes, Steven wondered because Yellow felt that strongly about all the trouble Pearl caused on Homeworld or perhaps it was because out of all the Gems in the Temple, Pearl was her only equal while the rest towered over her in status.

It wasn't long until Connie entered the household, carrying Rose's sheathed sword with Lion not being too far from her. She tied her long dark hair into a sleek braid, looking battle-ready as ever.

"Are we still training at the Sky Arena?" Connie asked as she quickly scarfed down the eggs Garnet offered her.

"Well, I was finally able to sweep away all the possibly hazardous damage that was caused to it," Pearl replied with a sideways glare towards Amethyst who only shrugged in response. "So I believe it's safe to start training there again. Jasper, I trust you won't go down too hard on the children this time?"

"You underestimate the strength Quartzes like me and Steven possess," Jasper answered with a flippant eye roll. "Soldiers have to endure the worst of the worst in order to rise up in battle."

Ever since Jasper was released from her bubble and cured of her corruption infection, she became Steven's guide to unlocking the inner Quartz she greatly expected from the son of Rose. Once being a soldier under the Diamonds' command, it seemed appropriate for her to prepare Steven into rising up against Yellow Diamond and the rest of Homeworld.

Then cue Jasper nearly letting Steven getting crushed by an avalanche of rocks and mud.

"You _overestimate_ the limitations of the human body," Pearl cried indignantly. "Unlike Gems, Steven can bleed, break his bones, slip into a coma, get brain damage, lose one of his five senses, can suffocate without proper oxygen—"

"We don't need a biology lesson, Pearl," Amethyst interrupted her.

From the sidelines, Yellow watched the exchange between the renegade and the two Quartzes that occupied the Crystal Temple with wide eyes. She couldn't believe it—two brutish and most likely far stronger bred soldiers (though one appears to be defective in some areas, especially height) speaking to a Pearl without the slightest hint of a threat or order in their voices, though there might be some annoyance involved. It was practically unprecedented. If Yellow had the right to do so, she would've intervened and set the conversation straight. But she was faced with anarchic and obviously superior Gems, even if a few confused Yellow to some degree, and she didn't have her Diamond to give her an excuse to talk down at them.

She had no right to question their exchanges or else she might lose the one chance of survival during her estrangement.

"We won't have to worry about Steven being put in danger," Garnet cut in. "Besides, it's been proven he can surprise us in strange ways," she added while ruffling her surrogate son's hair. "We need to get ready for training. Before you ask, Amethyst, Peridot will not be joining us. Jasper— _before_ _you ask—_ Lapis isn't coming either, so no harm done."

"What about Yellow?" Steven piped up, finally acknowledging the Pearl in the background.

"There's no place for her during combat training," Pearl snapped without even a hint of remorse in her voice.

"Pearl," Steven exclaimed in shock at how disdainful Pearl was towards another Pearl like her. "I can't believe you would say that! Didn't Gems say that about you at one point?"

"W-well Steven," Pearl stuttered out, not wanting to think about how true Steven's statement was. "I believe that Yellow, regardless of what kind of Gem she is, would feel uncomfortable as we train to fight against where her loyalties lie."

"Well, do you really want her to stay here alone at the Temple? Do you really care that little about her well-being?" Steven retorted with a surprisingly harsh tone to his words.

"If you really want her to become her own Gem, then maybe that's the best course of action," Pearl said as she tried to defend herself.

"Hey guys," Amethyst piped up. "Do you think that Yellow should choose if she wants to come with us or not? Being free and everything should give you that kind of liberty."

Both Pearl and Steven shrank back in shame once they realized their insensitivity, especially Steven since he was adamant about getting Yellow to break free of Homeworld's standards and becoming independent.

"So what do you say, Yellow?" Steven asked tentatively. "Feel comfortable with joining us or do you want to stay here alone?"

The mere thought of being alone on Earth frightened Yellow. When she thought about it, there were incredibly rare moments in her life where she actually was alone. Being the personal servant of Yellow Diamond required absolute pride in being able to follow her Diamond everywhere she went. Even when she was requested to give her Diamond privacy, the looming shadow of her master seemed to cast over Yellow, reminding her that not a moment passes without her Diamond's presence judging every aspect of her.

She wasn't prepared to feel that kind of emptiness again, especially in a place she was so unfamiliar with.

"What exactly do you Crystal Gems plan to do?" Yellow asked, her imagination already flourishing with fantasies of what the Crystal Gems do on Earth, perhaps ravage some of the few Gem-made structures on this unfinished colony and pet some hazardous organic creatures.

"Um, we're just going to practice some fighting techniques," Steven answered, not sure of any other ways to phrase 'We have to train to rise up against your former master in case she decides to invade us again.' "We're not forcing you to do it or anything, it's your choice."

The word "choice" almost felt foreign to Yellow. "Choices" were reserved solely for Diamonds and those they decide are good enough to have "choices." She wasn't sure what exactly made her worthy of having a "choice" but right now, it felt as if she had nothing, so she decided to accept such a strange gift.

"I believe that staying here would only cause me distress," Yellow said slowly. "Therefore, I decide to come with you."


	7. Impossible Made Possible

"I hate having her here," Pearl muttered under her breath as she witnessed Steven leading Yellow towards the seats of the Sky Arena. "Look at how she treats Steven."

"Are you jealous now that you're not the only one fawning over him?" Jasper snorted, raising her eyebrow in a playful fashion.

"I never intended for Steven to know how Pearls . . . truly function on Homeworld," the white Gem admitted shamefully, her cheeks turning a bright turquoise. "If she keeps this behavior up, what will Steven end up thinking of me? He's obviously uncomfortable being around Yellow."

"If anything, the way you treat him and the way Yellow attempts to serve him are exactly alike," Jasper huffed, continuing to inspect the collection of swords and axes that the Crystal Gems brought.

" _Excuse me_?" Pearl cried indignantly. "Haven't it been clear that I am no slave of Homeworld like you previously thought?"

Jasper remained unfazed, her amber gaze hardening. "Sure, you may have created a new purpose for yourself and gained respect, but the way you carry out your duties still reminds me of the way a servant fawns over her master. You struggle when fighting by yourself and depend on the others more than you would like to admit out loud."

The blueness of Pearl's cheeks only deepened. "T-that's not true. I've moved on from depending on Rose—or Garnet—or even Steven—for everything."

"A few steps forward doesn't exactly mean complete remedy, Pearl," Jasper sneered. "Trust me; I know that more than anything."

"Okay, I'm ready for combat practice!" Steven cried, pumping his fists in the air.

"Are you sure Yellow is content watching?" Pearl asked, observing the Homeworld Pearl's sour face out of the corner of her eye. She knew that poisonous stare was reserved for her.

"She said that she's seen Quartz Gems combat before," Steven answered, slightly uncomfortable, like Yellow divulged even more about the lifestyle of a Pearl.

"Fine then," Pearl huffed, walking away to help Connie with her sword-holding grip.

"Why can't Pearl get along with Yellow?" Steven sighed. "I thought that maybe seeing another one of her kind might help her out after . . . what happened with Yellow Diamond."

"You expected seeing another Homeworld civilian would help her after being attacked by Homeworld?" Jasper said sarcastically.

Steven vehemently shook his head. "No, I meant that I thought Pearl would love being around someone who was considered her equal, that it might even trigger some good memories of her past. I never knew that she left such a bad impression on Homeworld."

Jasper chuckled a little. "If you only knew, Steven; on Homeworld, Pearls rarely interact with Gems of their own kind. Their entire life ends up revolving around their masters. They are trained not to acknowledge one another, to keep them from bonding and becoming less dependent on their master for company. That's how they enforce submission on Homeworld." She laughed bitterly before adding, "I remember when I used to laugh at how clingy Pearls were. That was when I didn't realize they exploited the same tactics on me for the Diamonds . . . even my own Diamond."

Steven placed a gentle hand on Jasper's bulky arm. "Did other Pearls know about Pearl's legacy?"

"Most of the records about the Rebellion were kept hidden from Era 2 Gems," Jasper revealed quietly, so Pearl wouldn't hear. "Either that or they washed over it with lies to make sure the Diamonds were painted as the honorable ones. Sometimes, I hear Gems who owned Pearls threaten their servants about a 'ruthless rogue Pearl' that they use to make sure their belongings never rebelled."

"So I guess that's why Yellow believed Pearl was a myth before," Steven said softly. "But then wouldn't seeing Pearl make Yellow realize she can survive well enough without a master?"

"Pearl is no martyr on Homeworld," Jasper explained. "Speaking well of the rebels would only get you shattered, anyways. It's most likely all Homeworld Pearls think of our Pearl as some sort of heinous criminal that caused their masters paranoia."

"I just want Yellow to realize life here with us would be a lot healthier than serving Yellow Diamond," Steven admitted. He looked up at his Quartz mentor with wide eyes. "Wait, don't you remember serving Yellow Diamond, too?"

"I don't consider her better than my original Diamond," Jasper muttered under her breath.

"No, I meant did you ever see how Yellow Diamond treated her Pearl?" Steven pleaded, eyes filling with curiosity.

"What goes on between a master and their Pearl is private business and that invading their privacy—or worse, soiling another Gem's property—can lead to severe punishment," Jasper explained. "I only saw brief snatches of what happened between them. Most of it only consisted of demanding orders and stiff obedience. That and the usual annoying smirk when Yellow Diamond punishes someone and her Pearl witnesses. She seems to enjoy it when someone else gets abused and it's not her."

It took a lot for Steven to avoid shuddering at such a revelation. Imagine how Yellow viewed her memories of serving her Diamond.

* * *

Yellow bit her lip as she watched the dark-haired human, supposedly referred to as "Connie" (human names seemed so strange to her), strike against Steven's shield with her sword. Up until now, she believed humans didn't possess enough intelligence to learn how to use weapons. Homeworld had invented combat far before humans even existed. Perhaps she should fear the young human as much as she should do with the rest of the Crystal Gems.

The Amethyst, despite being defective in a few areas, seemed just as skilled as the fully-functional Jasper, the two of them brawling against each other in an almost playful manner, the purple Gem even getting the more elder Quartz to crack a smile sometimes. When they finished combat sessions, the Amethyst ended up brushing the filth out of her fellow Quartz's hair and teasing her about various aspects. It was so strange, especially considering that Jasper was vastly superior to the Amethyst according to the correct aspects of Quartz soldiers. It was unsettling to see them act so casually when there's a glaring issue of difference in between them.

Normally, the Diamond Authority would never permit Quartzes that resembled Amethyst into the army. It would be an utter embarrassment to the honor of Homeworld and only proved desperation. But Yellow still feared the Amethyst just the same as she would Jasper, since no matter how defective she was, she was still leagues above a Pearl. Almost everyone on Homeworld was.

Yellow had heard rumors about a mixed-component fusion fighting as a rebel and it didn't take long for her to realize that that was what the magenta Gem called "Garnet" was. She had never seen a "Garnet" produced in a Kindergarten and was now almost sure that action would be impossible. From what she could see from her palms, Yellow deduced that she was a fusion between a Ruby and Sapphire.

She remembered Rubies staring at her from afar back on Homeworld. To them, she was some sort of unattainable prize that only worthy Gems could receive. She sometimes heard them wistfully imagining out loud about what they would do if they had their own Pearl. Their provocative words made Yellow stiffen just thinking about it. Even if Rubies could never attain Pearls, they were still above her and so Yellow could never speak back at them.

Sapphires of course, were completely different. Many of them possessed Pearls but they were often known to quite gentle towards their servants, quietly warning them of the dangerous futures they envisioned. Even though Sapphires were important elites, they weren't as high-maintenance as other masters and mostly desired solitude to reflect on their visions.

Yellow wouldn't call them a better master than her Diamond though. Serving her Diamond was a very privileged position that other Pearls could only dream of coveting.

Imagining a fusion between two different Gems should've been impossible. But somehow, the Crystal Gems had a penchant for making what Homeworld called "impossible" and "unnatural" quite real. Rubies and Sapphire were rarely needed in the same room before on Homeworld. Sapphires never needed to step foot on a battlefield or an off-Homeworld mission like where Rubies were often found and a Ruby could only dream of being in a spire reserved solely for elites for them to reflect and meditate in.

And yet, they managed to fuse in perfect harmony. And what felt even more unsettling was the fact they refused to separate. Was it only for the strength boost? Were the Ruby and Sapphire useless on their own? What happened when they did separate? Was it forced, like the way the Cluster was intended to be?

The "Garnet" didn't seem to be a Gem at all, only a weapon of some sort, and yet she is treated as normally as the rest are. If she wasn't considered a whole Gem and neither would a Pearl, perhaps that was the reason behind her and the Renegade's rather easygoing relationship.

Suddenly, Yellow caught the Renegade summoning light from her gemstone and using it to conjure a hologram of her likeness. It was simple, enough, and Yellow was sometimes required to summon holograms as well, but the Renegade didn't seem to stop there.

The hologram was given a weapon and the Renegade did something almost unspeakably unnatural. The light from her gem was summoned again, but then the Renegade reached in and it manifested into a glittering spear.

It was such a barbaric action that Yellow ended up falling out of her seat witnessing it. She got back up only to see the Renegade using it to slash through several more holographic clones with relative ease, just as skillfully as a Quartz soldier would do so. Her fighting style was much more refined and graceful than Yellow had seen in combat arenas before, almost like dancing. But it was much more deadly than any dance Yellow had learned.

Worst of all, plastered on the Renegade's face was a gleeful smile as she tore through her hard-light enemies, her smile only brightening when her holograms were reduced to flying crackling sparks in the air.

The smile was far more vicious than the ones she sees Quartz warriors wear during battle.

It was all too much. Seeing any more of such barbaric actions would only cause Yellow more internal questioning and anguish. Sickened and anxious, she slipped away from her spot in the audience and headed towards the Warp Pad from which she came.

Just when Yellow was sure she could go back to the Temple in peace, the young Steven had already spotted her attempted escape and had followed her to the Warp Pad.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "I thought you actually wanted to stay!"

"I just can't take any more of watching the Renegade perform such . . . sadistic actions," Yellow gulped as she climbed up onto the crystalline teleportation device.

"Pearl's going through a lot right now," Steven explained, clinging onto Yellow's arm. "That was just her way of working off the stress."

"Even then, I can't stay here!" Yellow exclaimed, wrenching herself away from the young human. "If I can't be of any use to you, then what was the point of even coming here at all?"

"If you wanted to be useful, you should just have some fun then," Steven said, nudging Yellow for encouragement. "And I think that I have had enough training for now. Jasper is really going hard on me lately and I need some rest too. I know the best place for you to relax without having to be alone."

"Where is that going to be?" Yellow asked dubiously. "Please don't let it be some sort of wild refuge for organic creatures."

"Just let me take you there and you'll see," Steven promised as he hopped next to Yellow on the Warp Pad. "And there'll be someone there who I think might be able to get through to you. She was in the same situation as you once."

"Okay?" Yellow agreed hesitantly. She wasn't sure if she liked where this was going.

Steven activated the Warp Pad and a flash of blue light engulfed the two of them and sent them upwards into the sky.

The two materialized in the middle of what appeared to be a grassy meadow speckled with flowers. The blue sky stretched above them, a lot less cloudy than before. Yellow's eyes widened when she saw where Steven had taken her to.

It appeared to be human-made structure, made of the organic material humans used to construct shelters, but it was haphazardly torn apart and filled in with metallic and aquatic decorations, the front of a vehicle sticking out of a wall, several feet above the entryway.

"Welcome to the Barn!" Steven cried. "Lapis, Peridot, there's someone here I want you to meet!"


	8. Unspoken Truths

The interior of the human structure was just as overwhelming as it was on the inside. Strange collisions of metal and aquatic decorations were randomly fixated to walls and scattered on the floor, and Yellow still couldn't figure out if it was intentional or not. Even stranger, seemingly random sculptures made of rather cheap and organic material were put on display, almost as if it was something to be proud of.

 _Humans certainly did have odd taste_ , Yellow thought as she tiptoed around the various parts of what appeared to be another one of humanity's primitive technologies, taken apart for who knows what.

"Huh, it looks like Lapis and Peridot are making room for improvement," Steven remarked as if the environment was entirely normal. "They added a lot more meep-morps since the last time I've been here."

"You have a Peridot on handy?" Yellow inquired. "I don't believe that any rightful Peridot would be able to stand it in here, would never even imagine them _building_ a place like this."

"Peridot became a lot different since the first time I met her," Steven said tentatively. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "HEY LAPIS AND PERIDOT! WHERE ARE YOU?"

Suddenly, Yellow heard a sharp _whoosh_ of water and a slight breeze ruffled her hair before she saw in front of her a Lapis Lazuli, slender and willowy, floating down on the wooden floor of the barn, amongst the strange fixtures that Steven called "meep-morps." With another scatter of footsteps, a Peridot arrived on the scene, lacking the famous limb enhancers Yellow had seen most of them adorn in an attempt to mimic their Era 1 predecessors.

Before a moment even passed, Yellow recognized the Peridot.

"IT WAS YOU!" the Pearl shrieked, clutching onto Steven to prevent herself from falling. "YOU WERE THE PERIDOT WHO DESECRATED THE NAME OF MY DIAMOND!"

The Peridot's eyes widened in surprise and screeched in a more expressive voice than Yellow was used to hearing from Peridots, "Oh my stars, you've adopted another one, Steven! Haven't we've already suffered enough trouble with Jasper? Don't you remember who she is?"

"I know that," the young boy reassured the green Gem. "But it turns out that not everyone during the invasion was successful in leaving the planet. I felt sorry for Yellow and thought that she deserved a chance to experience life without having to take orders."

Peridot's eyes nearly bulged out of her visors. "Another Renegade?" she yelped. She clapped her hands together in a prayer and ducked her head. "Please, I swear I won't deny your place amongst us," she begged Yellow. "Just please don't punch me!"

"What is she talking about?" Yellow asked confusedly, placing her hands on her hips. That gesture alone made Peridot stand at attention.

"I'll have you know that I admire the strength you have when you chose to abandon Yellow Diamond," Peridot proclaimed with a hand placed on her chest. "I know she is someone truly to be reckoned with but the fact that you have broken free of her command earns you my respect."

She spoke as if she was complimenting a grand Quartz warrior instead of mere Pearl without her master. It deeply confused Yellow. She was always used to Peridots muttering either about the uselessness of Pearls and how impractical they were or hypocritically fantasizing what it would be like to be rewarded one. But even though it was severely unneeded and improper, Yellow couldn't deny the praise the Peridot was giving her for doing absolutely nothing. It was perhaps the first time someone complimented her without having to regard her Diamond at the same time. And strangest of all, Yellow felt happy receiving praise that didn't involve her grace or daintiness.

She decided that it felt good to accept the praise, despite the fact that it was heinous in regards to Homeworld's society structure.

Yellow smiled smugly, quite reminiscent of the one she wore the last time she saw the Peridot, and said haughtily, "Thank you very much. I'm not sure what exactly I did that pleases you but I am very grateful."

The green Gem breathed out a sigh of relief and told Steven, "Wait till you see the new meep-morp I created to commemorate the battle we won against Yellow Diamond. I captured Chrysoprase's likeness perfectly!"

She pointed to a haphazardly put-together sculpture that was splattered with color and roughly resembled an untamed beast. Multiple arms were splayed out and Yellow could count at least six pairs of eyes on their mask-like face.

She recognized what the artwork was meant to resemble. It was the hideous beast that ripped her ship out of the sky and sent her plummeting into the ocean, away from her home, away from her people, away from her Diamond: the fusion that started everything.

Yellow took a couple of steps back, shuddering in the memory of seeing the fusion when her fleet approached the beach. At the time, she didn't know that it would send her life off the track it was supposed to go and left her completely purposeless as a Pearl, not to mention send her across the path of the fabled Renegade Pearl.

 _Where did it all go wrong?_ Yellow thought to herself as she clutched her forehead in agony.

Regaining her composure, she asked Steven quite tentatively, "Why did you bring me here again?" averting her gaze from the supposed "meep-morp."

The young boy smiled and grabbed the hand of the blue-skinned Gem by him, who remained rather silent during the entire ordeal, a gloomy expression on her face.

"Lapis here was once just like you," Steven proclaimed proudly. "She was stranded on Earth and wasn't sure if she really wanted to stay or not. But eventually, she figured that now that she's not trapped in a mirror or a fusion, she has the choice of exploring Earth instead being locked away in a prison. I thought she would be the perfect person to talk to after everything that happened to you. She was faced with a rough choice, too."

"It was either this or face being punished on Homeworld," Lapis replied flippantly, like that kind of life-changing decision was as simple as changing your physical form.

Yellow bit her lip. She wasn't sure if this Gem was the right person to talk to. She admittedly never encountered that much Lapis Lazuli before, being that Blue Diamond was rather fond of them and not her own Diamond, but this one in particular seemed to be so detached and sulky, not someone you would trust with your inner thoughts.

"Are you sure," Yellow asked hesitantly, not able to make eye contact with the Lazuli.

The blue-skinned Gem's face softened a little. "I know it seems hard at first, but it's easier being happy here than to resent it for the rest of your life."

Yellow knew that some Lapis owned Pearls and was surprised to see this one regard her with such considerate behavior. In fact, none of the Crystal Gems seem to acknowledge the fact that she was a Pearl abandoned by her Diamond. They glossed over that fact so nonchalantly that it deeply startled Yellow.

Peridot led Steven away to view more "meep-morps" while Lapis took Yellow to sit on the makeshift seat made out of a discarded human vehicle that was deeply lodged into the wall to make a balcony.

"How did you end up here, anyways?" Lapis asked softly, surprisingly acting a lot less cold than earlier, looking at Yellow with a more thoughtful gaze than before.

Yellow shifted uncomfortably for a moment before answering. "My ship crashed into the ocean after your fusion sent it plummeting into the sea. All the other Gems attended on the ship are most likely dead with their shards scattered on the bottom of the sea floor."

Despite the deeply morbid explanation, Lapis remained unnerved by her words, like it was something she heard every day. "Did you already meet Pearl?"

Yellow's face soured immediately at the thought of the Renegade. "Yes I did, and the only thing I have to say is that she is everything I was told not to be back on Homeworld."

Lapis was silent for a moment before continuing. "Back on Homeworld, I never truly acknowledged Pearls. Before, I thought that were happy the way they were and that the life accompanying an elite would be quite fulfilling. Owning one felt so exotic to me but I was never important enough to be rewarded one. At that time, I never regarded their feelings for a second. But then the Rebellion started and I was forced inside a mirror because of a huge misunderstanding. It was then I experienced being treated like an object and getting cut off from my freedom. I can't believe it took me so long to realize that was exactly how a Pearl felt. In fact, that was how Pearl and I made peace over the whole thing that happened between us—"

Yellow cut off the blue Gem's soliloquy with a sharp gasp. "No, you were right before! Don't listen to a thing the Renegade says! She certainly doesn't represent all of her kind because if she did, then we would all have been discarded a long time ago! I really was happy with my Diamond and my life was fulfilling when I served her—"

"Yellow, I know that's not true," Lapis interrupted. "That's only what your Diamond told you. I know it feels like you were happy bonded with someone like that but when you look back on it, it's actually a lot more toxic than you think."

"How dare you say that my bond with my Diamond was toxic?" Yellow cried indignantly.

"Yellow, I've seen how masters treat their Pearls!" Lapis interjected, her voice growing fiercer. "You can't possibly say that your Diamond is different! Trust me; I know how it really feels. If you would just listen to me—"

"I won't listen to you and your lies," Yellow snapped, getting up from her seat. "You don't know me and you don't know my Diamond. I don't know why I even came here in the first place!"

"Yeah, that's true," Lapis laughed bitterly, her expression shifting from empathetic to fed-up like before. "I don't know your Diamond. But even you can't deny she doesn't care about you the way you do about her! _If she did, you would have never abandoned you!"_

Everything froze the moment those words escaped Lapis Lazuli's mouth. Yellow's face collapsed and the two Gems fell silent. For a moment, Lapis appeared to be bathing in her victory of having the last word but then she immediately regretted it once she witnessed how crushed Yellow was.

Yellow didn't even know why that revelation even broke her. She knew it from the start but hearing it from another Gem's mouth made it even more so cutting.

 _What did my Diamond and I really have?_

The question was utterly treacherous to think about but it was the one thing reverberating in Yellow's mind. Were her memories really as truthful as she previously thought? Or were they just as warped as the Lazuli stated?

"I'm sorry for saying that," Lapis started. "I always say really hurtful stuff like that all the time and I never apologize for it but I really am—"

"Just don't," Yellow interrupted her and she hopped down from the balcony wordlessly, not acknowledging anything around her as she headed towards the Warp Pad.

Just when it appeared that Lapis was crying for Yellow to come back, the Pearl called out, "Tell Steven I'll be at the Temple. It's futile to try and make me happy here, not when I'm a failure as a Pearl."


	9. Becoming Crystal Clear

At first, Yellow always feared being alone. Her status as a Pearl demanded her to constantly be in the presence of her Diamond and when her master desired privacy, she was usually surrounded by other Pearls who were given the same order (despite the fact that she was barred from speaking to them, let alone acknowledging their presence).

It was strange, really. Yellow had little experience being social with Gems other than her Diamond—the other Gems she encountered were merely followers of her Diamond as well and required access to their ruler and Yellow was only obligated to serve them—yet she felt that loneliness might be the worst punishment of all.

Being stranded and forced to take refuge in the Kindergarten was dreadful and stifling, no place for a Gem like her—she may never admit it out loud but she was deeply thankful for Steven rescuing her if it meant never being alone again.

Stepping into the empty Crystal Temple with no intent of returning to her so-called "caretakers" was a whole new experience: it was the first time Yellow actually desired to be alone.

She felt disoriented, despite the fact that she had hardly taken any action during her escapade with the Crystal Gems. The same question kept echoing inside Yellow's mind.

 _What did my Diamond and I really have?_

Ever since she was assigned to her master, Yellow had no need to ponder that question. It was always stated to her in the most straightforward way possible: she was her Diamond and she was her Pearl and that was something truly honorable.

But then another thought passed her, something incredibly horrifying; she was never truly special to her Diamond. Before her, Yellow Diamond possessed many servants, all who failed or became outdated a long time ago. That fact was something Yellow knew for a very long time—in fact, it was something drilled into every head of every Pearl—but never had she made that kind of revelation before.

Yellow always assumed that it was her duty to outshine her master's old Pearls, to succeed in where they have failed, to serve her Diamond for as long as she can to prove that she is everything a Pearl was supposed to be. But what if all that work was all to prove that despite being an insignificant Pearl, she was special?

But as it turns out, all that work and carefulness was all for nothing. She still ended suffering the fate of any other unsatisfactory Pearl: abandoned, lost, and without a purpose.

Yellow gritted her teeth; how could she think of her Diamond in such a negative light? If she was on Homeworld, she would be shattered for having such doubtful thoughts, even if they were never spoken aloud.

Her Diamond was perfect; the living embodiment of all that is honorable about Gem-kind, and anyone who doubted her was labeled a traitor and was exiled. She was an insignificant Pearl, a fact that she refused to accept a long time ago. Her Diamond wasn't to blame for everything that happened to her; it was Yellow herself for not being good enough for her. She didn't deserve to be Yellow Diamond's closest confidante.

But then, for it seemed to be the third time in a row, Yellow made another startling realization that was all too obvious before: she wasn't on Homeworld anymore.

There was no punishment for thinking doubtful thoughts, nor were there any consequences to fusing outside of battle purposes or creating less-than-professional bonds with Gems outside your field area. For once, Yellow was safe from harm.

She wouldn't be considered defective if anyone found out about her treacherous thoughts. Nor would she be shattered.

Freedom was such an inappropriate feeling, one not meant to ever be felt by a Pearl of all Gems, but if so, why did excite Yellow so much then?

It was a very small amount of happiness, but it warmed Yellow, especially since it was the first time feeling content after being stranded. She knew it was deeply inappropriate but she felt the edges of her mouth twitch upwards, a genuine smile forming on her face, not out of relief or slight amusement at the subordinates of her Diamond, but true comfort and contentment.

The emotional warmth suddenly turned into _physical warmth_. Yellow's eyes widened as she looked down on her chest and was alarmed to see her gemstone actually _glowing._ It wasn't as fierce or luminescent as the glowing gemstones of the Crystal Gems but it was soft and subtle, like flickering candlelight.

Sheer contentment quickly turned into panic. This had never happened to Yellow, nor was it ever recorded to happen to Pearls. The glowing warmth of her gem felt so alien and unnatural, and yet so creepily satisfying deep down; what did this mean? Was it a sign that she was defective or maybe a sign of damage somehow? Could this be dangerous? Or was it all a physical projection of her happiness and comfort?

She wasn't projecting a hologram or trying to create insubstantial light for practical purposes or storing something in her gemstone. All of this glowing was completely involuntary and seemingly served no purpose at all. Yellow tried to cup her hands on her gem to see if that would make it stop but it only seemed to brighten even more.

As much as Yellow tried to repress it, the light continued to brighten and warm her and shockingly, it actually felt _comforting_. It clearly wasn't going to harm her and it came to her just when it felt like she was falling apart internally. She released her grip on her gemstone and let it shine for all it wanted to.

Suddenly, Yellow heard a soft tinkling noise and directed her gaze towards her Temple door that separated Steven's living quarters from the base of the Crystal Gems. Her eyes widened to see the white stone encrusted on the Crystal Gems' symbol come to life, glowing with just as much intensity as Yellow's gemstone, almost like a response. A silvery line of light divided the door in half, curving around the door's symbol in a perfect semi-circle, and unlocked it, revealing a room overflowing with rushing water that cascaded in a collection of waterfalls.

Yellow recognized this kind of action before; on Homeworld, there would be certain sensors to detect the presence of an active gemstone and activate doors and certain types of technology for elite Gems, purposely to make sure no one else's unworthy hands could ever touch it. She never realized that Pearls were capable of activating such light.

Tentatively, she made her way into the room, letting it seal shut behind her. She placed one foot on the surface of the water and remained upright. Walking on fluid surfaces was a special skill for Pearls, so they could dance on any surface without ever losing grace. The water rippled underneath Yellow's footsteps as she found herself standing on a massive fountain.

She was definitely intruding, but for once, it didn't bother Yellow. She had nothing else to lose if she got into trouble. She was already devoid of her purpose, cut off from her home, and it would most likely be a relief for the Crystal Gems if she disappeared, especially since those around her were deeply disturbed by her presence. What else could happen to make her suffer even more?

Another smile formed on her face as she pirouetted daintily on the surface of the glass-smooth water, sending gentle ripples skipping across the water. She leaped lightly, enjoying the scattering sounds of the water as she landed, almost like music to her. It had been so long since she danced, knowing that without a master she would have no purpose to, but now that she knew there was nobody to tell her otherwise, she could dance to her nonexistent heart's content.

The fluid movements and elegant twirls she executed filled her with glee and pride, something she hadn't been able to feel for a long time. Another thought that made her break out into a smile passed her: her performance was much better than it had ever been on Homeworld and in the presence of her Diamond. It was pleasurable to know that being cut off from her owner didn't _completely_ deprecate her of everything that made her happy.

Now if only the moment could last forever.

Striking thoughts and revelations ran through Yellow's mind as she leapt and twirled and dipped across the water.

 _I wasn't the perfect Pearl for my master. She must've replaced me by now._

 _But who's to say that that Pearl would be just as good as I was? Perhaps she would be at the same level as I was and meet the same fate._

 _Could there ever be a perfect Pearl? Would my Diamond even care?_

 _I should stop calling her my Diamond. As far as I'm concerned, I didn't really matter that much to her._

 _Is Yellow Diamond truly everything I thought her to be? All of her attempts to destroy the Crystal Gems have been proved to be failures._

 _Maybe I'm not the only Gem who failed her purpose. Yellow Diamond couldn't even properly avenge her sister like she claimed she would._

Instead of the thoughts sinking her self-esteem and driving her towards a dark place, it lifted Yellow up somehow. Letting herself know that Yellow Diamond never loved her as she should've and that her former purpose as a Pearl was completely meaningless if she was so easily replaced and never stood out at all. She no longer clung to the past or felt any homesickness for Homeworld; every good memory she seemingly had was merely warped and distorted according to what she had been taught as a Pearl. Now all the memories fluttered by her in sharp clarity, no longer painted in such a perfect light.

She remembered being shouted at by Yellow Diamond and blaming herself for it.

She remembered watching several subordinates of Yellow Diamond being harvested or shattered and feeling pleased that it wasn't her; her relief that she would live for another day manifesting into pure sadism.

She remembered being threatened constantly and living under a blanket of fear and still feeling proud of being a servant that had no meaningful purpose.

She remembered being sought after by lower-class Gems and overhearing their vulgar intentions for Pearls if they were ever rewarded any.

She remembered watching other Pearls getting punished and shattered without any mercy or forethought and feeling no remorse herself, being prideful that it wasn't her.

Everything was now made clear to Yellow: she was selfish, sadistic, and clearly blind when it came to serving Yellow Diamond. But Yellow Diamond was far worse.

She shouldn't be missed at all. Yellow felt foolish for thinking that way. Being on Earth was supposed to mean freedom and salvation but instead she treated like it was a punishment. Why didn't she cherish it sooner?

A startling voice interrupted Yellow's swarming thoughts: "What do you think you're doing?"

Yellow opened her eyes to see the Renegade Pearl standing at the threshold of her room with her hands on her hips, several swords in tow. Her expression was a mixture of disdain and slight amusement. Yellow could tell that she was secretly impressed as well.

"I never realized that you could activate my door," the Renegade Pearl continued, hiding a bit of awe in her voice. It was like she was struggling to be angry but couldn't summon it properly. "But I guess I should've seen that coming, since only a gem of a Pearl could do that. Now tell me, what are you doing here?"

Instead of sparking another argument like she would've done earlier, Yellow simply hopped down from the fountain she stood on, creating more ripples in her wake.

Attempting to smile in gratitude for once, Yellow said begrudgingly, "I think I was wrong about you."


	10. The Renegade and the Defiant

**Warning: mentions of suicide.**

* * *

"I-I'm sorry?" Pearl cried, pressing a hand against her chest.

For a moment, she wondered if she collapsed from the exhaustion of training and having one of those _horrid_ "dreams" again. But that would be impossible: the sensation of sleep was something Pearl swore to never feel again and the thrill of combat was so great that she couldn't even imagine trying to sleep afterwards.

"Don't make me repeat it again," Yellow sighed in her usual condescending tone that confirmed that Pearl wasn't imagining things. "What I meant was that my earlier hostility towards you was something of a . . . mistake."

Pearl opened her mouth to respond just when Yellow suddenly continued, "Of course, your actions were certainly not rational or faultless either—especially since you tried to place me inside a bubble—but after a lot of thinking and a bit of talking to the Lazuli, I believe that you weren't wrong when you said Pearls don't mean anything to their masters."

"Well, thank you," said Pearl in a rather proud tone. "I was hoping that you would make that revelation soon enough."

Yellow's signature sour expression returned to her face. "You can't blame me for being shocked at your presence. You are nothing but a mere urban legend on Homeworld and the only Pearl to ever think about rebelling, especially since your actions have done absolutely nothing but cause paranoia amongst Pearls."

Pearl's haughty smile immediately vanished. "What exactly did my actions do?"

Yellow thought back for a moment before answering. "Every Pearl on Homeworld fears the idea of being compared to you. Every master's tale of you seems to change details ever so often but all of them describe you as a vicious soldier who couldn't accept the fact that she was defective—the point of the stories was to frighten Pearls into submission, now that I realize that that is far from true."

"So nothing good came from it?" Pearl implored her. "Have you ever heard of other Pearls trying to do the same, other renegades, even ones who didn't succeed?"

Yellow only raised an eyebrow at the questions. "As far as I heard, no Pearl ever dared to do the same thing you did. Being compared to the Renegade was meant to be something of a threat rather than something to strive for."

Disappointment washed over Pearl's face. She wasn't mad at Era 2 Pearls for being scared of her—it wasn't their fault—but when she first broke free, she imagined that hundreds of other Pearls would do the same, that she might even be regarded as an inspiration for future generations and be just as worthy as Rose Quartz. But all that wishful thinking only turned out to be hopeless dreaming; in reality, all Pearls were afraid of her, relished to be the exact opposite of her, the name of the "Renegade Pearl" being used to keep Pearls in line, which made things even worse instead of better.

Pearl was no inspiration to any Gem of her kind; she was a demon to them.

Blue managed to be the only Gem who attempted to do the same as her and she failed miserably, letting it cost her life. Pearl was truly the only one to ever experience freedom and it made her feel lonely rather than victorious when she thought of all the other Pearls who feared the idea of freedom.

No wonder Yellow was hesitant to accept her freedom as well.

"What did you expect anyways?" Yellow asked; trying to be sympathetic like Lazuli was to her. "Homeworld has advanced greatly since Era 1, so even if your idea spread like you wanted it to, no Pearl would succeed in becoming free. And as if anyone was allowed to speak of the Crystal Gems in a positive light; the manner of discussing you has become something of a confidential topic only allowed for Era 1 veterans to speak of."

"It was foolish for me to think of it—maybe even a bit arrogant as well—but I thought that, perhaps, some Pearl might want to break free from servitude as well," Pearl said slowly, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "Of her own free will as well," she added when she realized that Yellow broke away from servitude, but not of her own choice.

"What could a Pearl do with a pair of swords on Homeworld anyways?" Yellow insisted, still thinking her words as empathetic. "You had a cause to preach about and something like that hadn't come up in Era 2 for years. If a Pearl wanted to rebel, they would have absolutely no reason behind it except selfishness."

"Even that would've been enough," Pearl muttered, her gaze falling to the floor. "Anything to make me believe I've done something good for my kind."

After a moment of unbearable silence, Yellow piped up with, "I know that I was certainly against it at first but . . . I do want to be like you now."

Pearl's eyes widened. "Really," she gasped. "But there's no need for you to learn how to fight—I can't imagine you with a sword anyways—"

"No!" Yellow interjected with a vehement shake of her head. "I don't want to fight! I would only end up dragging everyone down if I do. But I want to learn how to live without a master. I want to able to serve a purpose that would end up being meaningful, unlike being a servant to Yellow Diamond. When I first realized that she wasn't going to come back for me, before deciding to flee to the Kindergarten, I thought about . . . about . . ."

"You were going to—?" Pearl said softly, confirmed by Yellow shaking her head sadly. Her expression softened towards her fellow Pearl. The thought of Yellow even considering shattering herself made for immediate pity; Pearl had heard it before, Gems like her shattering themselves if their master abandoned them.

"The only reason I couldn't do it was because the pain was too much for me to bear," Yellow chuckled sadly. "Even when I wanted to die, I was afraid of dying. I spend such a long time trying to evade an early death to the point where when I needed to die, I couldn't do it."

The mentions of death deeply haunted Pearl with memories of Blue. Before the two of them met, Blue's greatest fear was being executed for disobedience and dying early, and that ended up being her demise. As it turns out, every Pearl seemed to have the same mindset. Except for the Renegade herself, where death felt like more of a great honor if it was for her beloved Rose. Did Pearl still desire an honorable death? She eventually learned that her life was of value to everyone around her but there were times that death might've been a better option that living with all the burdens that had piled onto her. Pearl trembled when another haunting memory passed her: when Rose sacrificed her physical form and left her, Pearl contemplated the idea of following her, even though there was no outbreak of war or a dire mission at hand. The only real struggle at the time was trying to live without Rose.

Pearl nearly chuckled morbidly. She really wasn't all that different from Yellow, or any other Pearl, for that matter.

"Well, we need all the help we can get now that Yellow Diamond made it loud and clear that she's coming for us," Pearl said softly, evading the topic of death. "And even though having another warrior would be much more useful"—seeing Yellow's face fall at those words made Pearl pity her even more, that her refusal to fight made her less useful to them—"you are more than welcome to join us."

Another nigh-impossible action seemed to occur: a smile seemed to form on Yellow's faced, genuine and warm instead of prideful and arrogant. It almost made her look beautiful.

The smile unfortunately vanished when Yellow made another revelation. "Wait, if I have to become a true Crystal Gem, does that mean I have to learn about . . . humans?"

"You'll eventually get used to them," Pearl said happily, remembering how enjoyable it was to actually socialize with Sheena, the first human Pearl found interesting at first sight. If there wasn't a possible war at hand, she would've spent all her time with the mysterious pink-haired woman. "Steven will be all too happy to help you and Connie can join as well. I can even introduce you to Greg and Sheena when the time becomes right."

"Those are very strange types for humans," Yellow replied in confusion.

Pearl couldn't help it; she laughed a little, remembering she was once this clueless about humans as well. Soon enough, Pearl took Yellow's hand and led her out of the room, smiling.

For once, things seemed to feel right for the Crystal Gems.

* * *

Rubble was scattered across the coastline as Citrine observed her surroundings. When she first regenerated, her entire ship was wrecked and everyone in it was reduced to shards on the floor. The pieces of the Gem piloting it, a Nephrite, were spread across the dashboard, dying in the exact place she was meant to serve.

Citrine had to mourn briefly before climbing out, as she realized that her entire squadron had died. It was more so of a practical loss, now that Citrine might have to transfer to another squad after leaving Earth. She wasn't one to bond with others, let alone grieves after they disappear.

She was lucky to survive the whole ordeal. That was what made her greater than the rest of them.

She assumed that she would be surrounded by warriors when she emerged from her ship, that she would be late to begin the battle against the Crystal Gems. But when she climbed out of her ship, she found herself amongst even more wreckage and shards caught inside them.

Everyone she was meant to fight with, everyone she served, everyone she ever knew: dead. It had taken her forever to properly bubble all of them.

Dead because of the Crystal Gems, because of their infuriating resilience against Corruption, the Cluster, and even Yellow Diamond herself.

She didn't know what happened when the Crystal Gems sent her ship hurtling towards the ground but there was one thing that was certain amidst all this tragedy and loss.

She was going to complete the mission objective. She was going to please her Diamond. She was going to avenge everyone who died during the invasion.

Citrine might've only been one Gem but she had already devised about a million ways to make the Crystal Gems suffer.


	11. Little Purpose Left

Yellow deeply feared the day when the Crystal Gems find her useless and a burden to their survival. After all, Pearl did outright state that a fighter would be much more useful than whatever Yellow could provide.

The idea of fighting at first sounded like something out of a dream, something that represented the hidden strength and potential Pearls possessed and forced to hide. Carrying a weapon, charging into battle, being the one who saved everyone instead of the one most likely replaced after dying; to Pearl, it must've been a fantasy come true.

Not to Yellow; the idea of doing any of that make her flinch and quiver. After being subject to so much cruelty at the hands of menacing Quartzes, she could hardly imagine filling in that role herself, no matter how useful it would make her. As much as she once enjoyed insubordinate Gems quake in their knees if they were caught by their superiors, destroying their physical forms absolutely sickened her. She wasn't sure if it was out of compassion and hatred for violence or simply cowardice and horrid memories of being threatened in the past.

Great, now she was useless _and_ couldn't give herself a good excuse why.

Pearl must be so ashamed. She could've had the chance of training another possible warrior and was given a cowardly Gem instead. Yellow doesn't deserve her pity or her service.

Luckily, she may not be alone on the whole "refusal to fight" stance.

Steven seemed to most pacifistic one out of all the Crystal Gems, which surprised Yellow immensely, since he had the gemstone of Quartz, who were known for their foreboding aggression and bloodlust. He tried to be gentle to everyone, even to his enemies, even to the ones who once threatened his life. He didn't seem to possess a single menacing bone in his body. Yellow wondered how he was related to the infamously cruel Rose Quartz.

Peridot seemed to be unskilled in combat as well—but only because she was truly _unskilled._ She really did wish to be stronger and perfect her metal-controlling powers. She had such a powerful weapon at her hands and yet fails to activate it at the right times. She insists that one day she would be just as powerful as Lapis is but struggles immensely (and sometimes Yellow liked to admit that watching her do so is quite comical).

But as much as Yellow tries to tolerate their presence, she doesn't want to become like them. She needed to be useful somehow, seeing how before Yellow Diamond didn't even seem to bat an eye when she realized her faithful servant was missing. She wanted to do something that could help others and make an impact instead of dragging everyone down. As a Pearl, she was only permitted to do the menial tasks that her former master couldn't be bothered with. And it was very easy to replace her. She needed to be someone meaningful, someone worthy of all the help the Crystal Gems have given her.

She needed to be someone who deserved to be saved.

* * *

Yellow Diamond's attack had left a lot more scars than Peridot's initial arrival to Earth years ago. Gems have actually died during this assault and now shards have littered Earth's precious soils. All of Beach City has become one massive graveyard for forsaken Homeworld soldiers.

Steven seemed to take this the hardest. All his life, he had been trying to make sure no one would ever get hurt from the Crystal Gems' actions. It was the one thing that separated him from his mother. But now, a million deaths of complete strangers now plagued him and he had done just what Rose Quartz did—shatters Gems for the sake of Earth—only to a frightening degree upwards.

The rest of the Gems try to keep a brave face for Steven to make sure he doesn't completely lose it but it was hard. This wasn't the first time they had been surrounded by millions of dead Gems. This wasn't the first time they ended up hurting the world around them in order to protect it. If anything, they _were used to it_. But the way Steven mourned his enemies as if they weren't sent to kill him filled the Crystal Gems with the same pity.

He was the one thing keeping them from becoming the monsters Homeworld portray them to be.

Today, their mission objective was to clean up the wreckage that was left behind on the coast and collect all the Gems shards before they started causing harm towards humanity.

 _Cleaning up messes_ , Yellow thought as she walked across the shimmering sand, littered with pieces of damaged Homeworld software. _That's one thing I can certainly do._

But she was quickly proven wrong when she realized that the ship wreckage was a thousand times heavier than she thought it would be. Only Garnet, Jasper, and Amethyst (when shapeshifted to the right size) could handle it. Pearl, Lapis, and Peridot have taken the duty of bubbling Gem shards and discarding any smaller, possibly hazardous material.

Lapis seemed to handle the work the same way she handled all things: with a blank deadpan expression on her face. However, Steven's presence almost made her a little more upbeat, if only slightly. Perhaps she was reminiscing about the fact that she once came to Earth on a ship just like these.

Pearl organized everything into neat piles and became irritated when Amethyst liked to mess with it for fun. All in all, she was being the most efficient out of all of them.

Jasper and Garnet did all the heavy-lifting while Amethyst tried her best to distract them, often making playful remarks their expense. Garnet, as always, kept a straight face but ruffled Amethyst's hair in response. Jasper was clearly aggravated but eventually decided to indulge in a mischievous headlock before continuing work. Yellow didn't even two Quartzes could even interact in such a casual manner that didn't cost someone's life.

And there was Yellow in the background, absolutely useless.

Even when there wasn't anything to attack them, she managed to be of no use to the Crystal Gems. If this was Homeworld, she would be harvested so something could be made of her presence. But even if it wasn't Homeworld, who was to say that the exact same thing wouldn't happen?

The Crystal Gems were a rebel league of warriors whose goal was to protect Earth which was a planet Yellow hardly knew or even valued that much. What could they do with a stranded Pearl who knew nothing of combat nor expressed an interest?

Yellow's gaze eventually fell upon Pearl, who worked in a quick but perfectionistic way. Despite being built so frail and delicate, she could engineer just as well as a Peridot and could fight at an equal level as Quartz. Yellow was of the same Gem type as her . . . and couldn't even imagine herself on the same level as her.

She felt her teeth clench underneath her breath. Yellow couldn't believe it. Was she actually _jealous_ of Pearl, who she had been taught to see as a traitor and demon? It was utterly shameful, even more so than being a purposeless Gem.

Maybe she should've stayed inside the bubble Pearl initially put her in. It was a lot more peaceful than struggling with these awful thoughts while surrounded by such unfamiliarity. In a bubble, she couldn't feel pain nor could she feel sorrow. It was a like a blissful rest that stretched on forever without the foreboding feeling of death. She was less troubled then.

"Hey, Yellow!" a youthful voice snapped the former Homeworld Pearl out of her pitiful thoughts. "I collected some seashells for you!"

Yellow raised an eyebrow as Steven looked at her with wide eyes, carrying in his hands what appeared to be an assortment of pale-colored enamel-like beings that were as hard and brittle as a Gem. They softly glinted with a creamy sheen when in the sunlight.

"Thank you . . ." was all Yellow could muster when she took the strange gift. The supposed "seashells" and felt them weigh down her hands. They were smooth and creamy in texture, almost like the gem of a Pearl. The thought was so startling that Yellow nearly dropped them but grasped onto the shells to keep Steven smiling.

She had decided that out of all the Crystal Gems, he was the most innocent.

"Is something bothering you?" Steven asked, his gaze softening. "You looked like you were about to cry earlier."

"No, I wasn't!" Yellow cried in outrage, glaring at the very thought of her crying in front of them. Pearls weren't supposed to cry in front of others: it was a sign of inefficiency and incompetence, which Yellow already knew she possessed.

"Yes, you were," the young boy insisted, but not in a harsh, reprimanding tone Yellow expected. He sounded very concerned.

"Why would you care? I'm not the Renegade, you know," Yellow sniffed, crossing her arms in a somewhat defiant manner. She was beginning to think that was the only reason he bothered with her, because he believed she was just like the Renegade.

No matter if she wanted it to be true or not, Yellow could never be like Pearl. It was a ridiculous desire anyways, since it involved combat and direct violence, which frightened Yellow.

"I know that," Steven cried, placing a hand on Yellow's, which startled her but not enough to make her pull away. She was growing used to the constant physical contact that the Crystal Gems were familiar with. "And even you don't want to be like Pearl, I would still want to help you anyways. No matter what, you're still a Gem in need."

Yellow expected him to redact that statement the moment it came out of his mouth, but his expression remained soft and compassionate. Her eyes widened when she realized that he was being truthful.

"Well yes," she admitted bashfully, a blush forming on her pristine cheeks. "I was thinking about something rather . . . depressing. I don't think you need to bother with that. You have more important matters to deal with."

"But I want to," Steven said earnestly, grabbing onto Yellow's wrist and gently holding her hand. "If there's anything you need to talk about, you can trust me to listen."

"Fine," Yellow sighed stubbornly, her eyes flitting around the already quite populated area they were in. "But not here. If I'm going to discuss something personal, then I would like to do it in a more private area."

"Okay then," Steven happily agreed and the two of them retreated into the thicker forests shrouded by trees, away from the beach and away from the Homeworld wreckage.

* * *

Citrine peered from the shadows as she located her target: a young human boy associated with the Crystal Gems: someone absolutely defenseless and of value to the Crystal Gems; perfect for attack. She raises an eyebrow as she realizes that he has company: a Pearl that startlingly resembles the one that belongs to her Diamond.

She shrugs off the inconvenience. After all, anyone could defeat a Pearl in combat. She is most likely just as frail.

Citrine smirks as she summons her weapon—a sharp-bladed scythe that is both elegant and unyielding—and follows them.


	12. Another Survivor

The wildlife on Earth was a lot less threatening than Yellow had previously thought. In some circumstances, they even looked beautiful. None of the organic fauna on seemed to mean her harm either; in fact, she might as well say that they were more afraid of her than she was of them. Every footstep she took seemed to make them scatter in all directions.

It almost made them appear charming.

"So what made you upset earlier?" Steven asked as he settled to sit down on the mossy grass. Tentatively, Yellow copied his actions but certainly wasn't pleased when she discovered the surface beneath her was crawling with miniscule creatures and gritty pebbles.

"Well . . . when I first arrived here on Earth, I expected the order of the Crystal Gems to be complete chaos without Homeworld's sacred system to follow," Yellow began. "Back on Homeworld, everyone had a role and everything fit together like a perfect puzzle. I thought that the Crystal Gems would be the opposite, but you seemed to have proven me wrong: you are all fitting together perfectly without any guidelines or system to follow, like the previous system I followed was absolutely meaningless, and what makes things even crazier is that it works; you all work together, fit together, without any chaos of any kind, and just so effortlessly as well! But then there I am . . . the leftover puzzle piece. You clearly never needed me before and only taken me in out of pity. The last thing I want to do is burden you with my presence."

The young boy's eyes widened and it almost seemed that tears were forming at the corners. "Oh wow," he squealed. "I can't believe you think of us like that! You really do want to help us!"

Yellow clenched her teeth in frustration. "Every Gem's greatest fear is becoming useless without a purpose. There's no need for you to get all sappy on me!"

"Oh, I'm sorry!" he apologized and wiped away his tears of joy. "You're not weighing us down or anything! We all like having you around!"

Yellow scoffed. "I don't believe that for a second. You were the only one who wished to set me free from that bubble and the rest were all too happy with Pearl's decision to lock me away. Now I'm afraid that should've been the right decision to make in the first place."

"Don't ever think like that!" Steven cried, placing a hand on hers. His touch was warm and genuine, different from the cold stiff grabs of Yellow Diamond. "If you do that, then you won't be able to stop it from coming true! Amethyst thinks you're really funny and Jasper knows better than to make fun of you. Garnet sees great possibilities and Peridot really learned to respect all Pearls. You are of worth to us."

"That's only for the Renegade's sake," Yellow insisted, hugging her knees to her chest. "If it wasn't for her, none of them would hesitate to bubble me again. They don't appreciate me; they only appreciate the fact that I'm a Pearl so they expect me to take up arms like the Renegade does."

"Do you want to do that?" Steven asked tentatively, not a hint of malice in his voice. In fact, Yellow has never once heard him yell or shriek in frustration. That seemed too strange to be true.

"I-I'm not sure," Yellow said nervously, her snarky tone fading away. "It all sounds very tempting and such, but the idea just seems too harsh for me. I have no idea how Pearl does it without flinching. I don't think it could ever be possible for me to learn how to fight."

Yellow expected Steven to look down at her in disappointment, to sneer at her and drive her away, but his expression remained sympathetic as always. "Just because you and Pearl have the same gem doesn't mean the two of you have to be same, and no one's expecting you to be anyways. The only thing we want from you is for you to be happy here. After everything that happened, I don't think we need to worry about fighting for a long time."

"Does it make me weak to not want to fight?" Yellow whispered in shame. "I mean, no Pearl except the Renegade has ever been able to wield such power by holding a sword, and here I am, just rejecting the opportunity. There are probably a million other Pearls who would love to have this chance I'm presented with."

"What you're feeling is perfectly normal," Steven reassured her and not a bit of those words sounded fake or saccharine. "Being the son of Rose Quartz is something that a lot of humans would probably want. Crystal Gems are supposed to defend humanity in any way they can and I've learned that that doesn't always have to involve fighting. Just because you're too afraid to fight doesn't make you worthless. You can help us in all sorts of ways, but the first thing we want you to do is find yourself peace here. That shouldn't be too hard, should it?"

When Yellow first laid her eyes upon Steven's gem, she assumed he must've been some rogue Gem experiment or perhaps a strange fusion of sorts. Even after learning how he was made—or in his terms, "born"—she still expected him to be dangerous, especially since he is the descendant of a Quartz—Rose Quartz, no less. But every word he seemed to utter and smile he wore upon his face provided nothing but warmth and sincere affection. She kept expecting him to revert to some strange primal state, anything that could resemble the signature intimidation of a Quartz soldier, but he continued to live his strange ways, innocent and carefree.

It should've been unsettling to see him act this way, so civil and gentle, but it came off as more relieving and comforting, knowing that he would never mean harm to someone no matter what they did.

Yellow smiled, which pleased the young boy infinitely. "Thank you, Steven," she said warmly. "If someone like you think I'm worthy somehow, then I'll do my best to make sure those words prove themselves true."

For a moment, everything seemed calm and happy. Yellow and Steven both stood up and the young boy offered her his hand. A gentle wind wafted through the trees and the sunlight trickled through the tree branches above them.

So when one of the forest's shadows sprung to life and leapt out of the trees, the peace shattered like a window disintegrating into a million pieces.

A curved blade struck Yellow in her torso and she went flying back into the trees, ended up sprawled uncomfortably in a tangled bush. She opened her eyes to witness a horrifying sight: a Quartz soldier, specifically a Citrine, standing over a cowering, helpless Steven, a vicious smirk on her face. The blade of her scythe came dangerously close to the young boy's face.

"W-who are you?" Steven whispered breathlessly, his pupils dilating.

"My name is Citrine Facet-2P7, Cut-9PD3," she whispered menacingly, smiling in glee to see how helpless Steven looked. "My entire squadron was wiped out during the invasion, after that _monster_ struck all of down, along with everything else I knew. As far as I know, I'm completely stranded on this disgusting planet. And I don't expect to let my mission go to waste while I'm here; even I have to do it alone."

"D-don't touch him!" Yellow cried, stumbling to her feet in such an inelegant way that it was almost disgraceful for a Pearl like herself. "He's not even a Gem, so what's the point of attacking him?"

Citrine's gaze scanned Yellow rather nonchalantly, hardly identifying her as a threat. In fact, the Quartz almost seemed to look at her rather scandalously, which sent an uncomfortable shiver up Yellow's nonexistent spine.

"From my observations, the Crystal Gems seem to have no qualms about recruiting humans into their brethren, since I earlier saw another human in your midst," Citrine answered flippantly, almost like she expected Yellow to be too dense to understand. "And I prefer to get the weak and defenseless out of the way first. I expect this to be your Pearl, young human?"

"No, definitely not," Steven cried defiantly, probably the fiercest Yellow ever heard him speak. "And don't even think about hurting her!"

Citrine hardly seemed to take any of his words seriously. Her burnt orange gaze returned towards Yellow, staring at her in a rather lecherous way. "So does that mean she's currently seeking a master?"

Simply her stare was enough to make Yellow flinch and cover her body.

Citrine simply smirked and rolled her eyes. "Looks like I'll be able to win myself a Pearl after disposing of you." Her gaze fixated back on Steven and she angled her scythe right across Steven's chest.

She swung it back and was about to make contact with his skin . . . right when a hardened pink surface formed beneath her weapon and forced her back, flinging her backwards.

Steven's glorious shield shimmered in the sunlight and encased the owner from harm. He smiled in relief and rose up triumphantly. "Don't underestimate the power of Steven!"

"T-that's impossible!" Citrine gasped, her nonchalant attitude quickly dissipating in the midst of this revelation. "Y-you're just a human!"

"And I'm just a Pearl," a proud voice interrupted. Everyone's gazes flickered towards the famed Renegade Pearl, with the rest of the Crystal Gems in tow. "But we're all surprising in our own ways. Did you think we were just going to let you hurt our Steven?"

"I don't know who any of you are or what that _thing_ is supposed to be," the new adversary sneered. "But one way or another, you are all going to pay for what you did!"

Before any of the Crystal Gems could surge forward and attack her, Citrine disappeared into the thicket of tree behind her and seemingly vanished into thin air, leaving all the Crystal Gems confused and Yellow deeply disturbed.

"STEVEN!" all of the Crystal Gems shriek as they embraced Steven heartily, who warmly returned the hug.

"How dare she call you weak and defenseless?" Pearl gasped. "She clearly knows nothing about you or any of us?"

"Must be an Era 2 Quartz if she didn't recognize Rose's symbol," Jasper grunted. "What a fool if she underestimated you."

"I'll tear her hair out if you ever comes near you again," Amethyst proclaimed, nuzzling into Steven's hair.

"I second that notion," Garnet added with a smile.

In the corner, Yellow curled up her knees to her chest again, burying her face in shame. Steven was in trouble and all she did was _stand_ there.

If Citrine ever came around again, she'll definitely target Yellow next, or worse, take her in a slave.

She needed to be prepared next time, whenever that may be.


	13. Dark Decisions

Admittedly, Connie felt a bit stifled as she was crammed between Steven and Amethyst on the couch while Garnet was currently very deep in thought, thinking about the future, Jasper was taking her frustration out on the very innocent pillow she just so happened to lay her eyes upon during her moment of seething anger, Peridot was whimpering and clutching onto a very apathetic Lapis, who regarded the smaller green Gem with a soft smirk, and Pearl pacing the room in a very erratic fashion.

But if she was honest with herself, she was happy that this time she was included in the magical affairs of the Crystal Gems, especially after everything that happened with Yellow Diamond. Instead of being the girl everyone insisted be locked out when serious issues arose, she was depended upon just as much as the rest. It was like she was finally their equal despite being a human, let alone a human _child_.

"Man, the last time something like this happened, it was when Jasper escaped in the snow during Connie's first mission," Amethyst drawled, chuckling after her "sister" gave her a very chastising look.

"I can assure you that Citrine is very different than Jasper," Garnet replied, placing a hand beneath her chin. "She cannot be reasoned with, has no connection to Rose Quartz or Steven whatsoever, and we have cost her everything since we defeated her armada during the invasion. Thanks to her, she has no purpose or meaning in life."

"What does she intend to do after she gets her revenge?" Steven asked. "I mean, it wouldn't make much of a difference if she can't go home."

"Simply being able to slaughter us is enough for a devoted Quartz soldier," Jasper sniffed in contempt. "It probably wouldn't even matter to her if she didn't get the recognition afterwards. Fulfilling Yellow Diamond's orders must be the only thing on her mind right now."

"Luckily, she's the only one we have to worry about," Garnet said as she returned to the present world. "She and Yellow are the only ones who survived the devastation. No more surprises as far as I'm concerned."

"Speaking of Yellow," Amethyst piped up. "How is she taking all of this so far?"

Pearl bit her lip. "I can't say she is remaining calm, and I guess that's one thing we have in common." She laughed for a moment before continuing. "She decided to take a breather in my room."

"Are the two of you roommates now or something?" Amethyst asked with a raised eyebrow, stifling a chuckle.

Peridot failed to hear the joking manner in Amethyst's voice once again. "Oh, if you are, I can lend you some tips to handle having a companion in your private areas. But I suggest to never recording a message for her, _especially if it's heartfelt._ "

Lapis only scoffed at those words while Amethyst chuckled and Pearl slapped her forehead, careful to avoid damaging her gem.

"Do you think she's taking this well?" Connie asked. She knew Yellow and Pearl and certainly different people but Yellow definitely shared Pearl's tendencies to be . . . high-strung. She wondered if the former Homeworld servant was already losing it by now.

"I hope so," Steven muttered. "I mean, I finally got through to her and made her accept her position here as a Crystal Gem and then she had to almost get snatched by a Quartz soldier."

"Perhaps she's a lot stronger than we think she is," Garnet mused.

* * *

Yellow hugged her knees to her chest as she contemplated the situation. The calm rushing sounds of water cascading down the various fountains definitely soothed her very much. She wondered if this was why Pearl installed her room this way. Anxiety certainly steadies quite a bit when there were sounds of water accompanying your erratic heartbeat.

For a moment, she believed she might have actually had a normal life on Earth. While her usual duties as a Pearl disappeared for good, there were other things to busy herself with to keep her from descending into madness. And the other Crystal Gems were more than willing to help her, especially Steven. But then everything was forced to change once again, right after she was beginning to feel comfortable.

Yellow shuddered at the thought of visualizing Citrine again. Her piercing eyes that traced every curve and edge of her body like most Gems who took the time to appreciate the beauty of a Pearl, the intimidating muscles that every Quartz were known for, and the thick hair that flowed down to her waist and was tied into a serpent-like braid.

She was always used to elite Gems admiring her like an object made to please, since she knew that was her role as a Pearl, but being subjected to that again made her shiver like it was a foreign feeling. It wasn't like it was a comment she had never heard before; several elites made passing comments that both complimented Yellow Diamond's tastes and the way Yellow herself pulled it off.

Now that it was coming to her again, Yellow realized just how discomforting it was.

She held herself in higher regards than that—at least, she hoped she did. She didn't need to take any of those comments in with pride anymore now that she knew that it really meant.

But still, it was possible that Citrine might take the chance to snatch her away from the Crystal Gems and make her a slave once again.

Yellow hugged herself tighter at the thought. She never wanted another master again, not after how much she realized how toxic the relationship was. She didn't want another Gem to trap her in their shadow, constantly belittle her and threaten her, strip of her dignity and pride. She couldn't handle being blamed for every single disaster that came her way and then subsequently punished for it without anyone bothering to take her opinion into regard.

No, never again.

Yellow thought of the numerous times she saw Pearl defend herself, showing off her strength and agility with pride, like she was allowed to flaunt without any transgressions. Absolutely shameless, she took out her weapon and let her enemy know that she wasn't prepared to get pushed around, even if it was their right to do so.

The steely glint in her eye, the proud way she carried herself, the zero trace of a servant in her stance; Yellow needed that more than anything.

And maybe if Pearl would let her, she could have the chance.

* * *

When Yellow stepped out of the Temple and into the "living room" as Steven liked to call it, everyone froze.

Jasper, Garnet, Connie, Steven, and Amethyst were all squeezed into one couch as Lapis and Peridot were forced to share a seat, the petite technician fitting rather well in the blue Gem's lap. Pearl was standing in front of them, clearly in the middle of ranting about something.

"Oh Yellow, there you are," Pearl tried her best to sound pleased but there was no masking the distress in her voice; it was clear that Yellow wasn't wanted here.

Steven was better at being enthusiastic. "We were all so worried about you!"

"Hopefully, you don't suffer the same mental breakdowns Pearl goes through," Amethyst popped in, earning nobody's amusement except Peridot's.

"Are you okay?" Garnet asked softly, which was truly the right thing to ask.

Yellow sucked in a deep breath. "I appreciate everything you did to make me feel comfortable here . . ."

"Oh, you won't believe how many times Jasper warned me not to make another lemon joke," Amethyst interjected.

The glare Yellow gave was extremely reminiscent of the ones Pearl gave, if not outright identical.

"But I can tell that now that there's another threat upon us, you desire there to be more fighters amongst you," Yellow continued.

"Yellow, you don't have to if you don't want to . . ." Steven warned, reaching out to her as if to grab onto her hand.

Yellow shook her head vehemently. "I know we settled that out earlier, Steven, but the truth is, I know that the first thing Citrine is going to do is target the defenseless and we can't afford to have that on our hands."

"So what are you saying?" Pearl asked, wrenching her hands together in anxiousness.

"I want you to teach me how to defend myself from her," Yellow answered with the best confident face she could muster.


	14. Unraveling the Lies

What had happened back there could not have been real?

But as a Quartz soldier, Citrine's vision simply couldn't have _blurred_ for a moment. That was outright impossible. She may not have emerged as perfect as Jasper did (no one else could, she was as flawless as it could get) but if she was of the chosen elite who were ordered for this important mission, then everything about _has_ to function appropriately. There was simply no other explanation.

That human boy had to be a Gem somehow.

But how could that be?

She had to admit that she had very little knowledge about humankind, but that was only because it wasn't in her field area, which mainly involved combat techniques and commanding subordinates. Studies of organic species were for more common, simpler Gems who couldn't ever have the right strength to become what Citrine was. She could probably learn if she wanted to, but then not only would that be a waste of time, it would be scandalous in everything Homeworld stood for.

Everyone had their place and everyone has their role; that was only thing Citrine was ever certain of. And she was created for a much higher role, so there was no need to meddle in whatever scum those other clods were assigned for.

She was better than that.

Perhaps the human was a Gem experiment Citrine had never heard of before. But if that was so, it would've been included in this mission's guidelines. There was no way that the Era 1 Gems could've constructed something like that and leave it out of the orders. That would've simply been foolish.

Perhaps the child was of the Crystal Gems' creations. Maybe they figured out just how useless and inferior humankind was with their limited amount of knowledge and purely mundane set of skills and decided to give them a little "upgrade" to make them more useful. But it was painfully obvious that the Crystal Gems were still stuck with decrepit versions of Era 1 technology that has been rotting for five thousand years so they couldn't have created a hybrid artificially, even if they did possessed the right procedures to do so.

Not to mention that that a being that was both Gem and human could never have been made in a normal Kindergarten, especially one that was most likely falling apart with age.

Then it struck her; if it was a creature that combined the powers of a Gem and the hopelessly mundane body of a human, then the answer was absolutely clear: the child was a fusion.

She remembered that the Crystal Gems used an extremely horrifying and twisted tactic during the war: fusing Gems of different types that more so resembled multi-limbed abominations rather than proper Gems. It was unprecedented the first time it happened and the component Gems that did so were immediately banished, so obviously Rose Quartz, the ringleader of the Rebellion, quickly whisked away the recently discarded and dishonored Gems and turned them to her side. It was technique Rose Quartz was undoubtedly famous for; taking in those who were unfit to belong to Homeworld's perfect society or simply refused to and brainwashed them to follow her ideals of anarchy.

It was why Era 2 Gems work even harder to maintain their perfection for the Diamonds; they could never imagine becoming what the Crystal Gems are reduced to now.

If they were able to create abominations such as the "Garnet" they carried around, then perhaps it was possible for them to create the supposed "hybrid child."

No matter then, if the "hybrid" was little more than an unstable fusion, then Citrine just figured how to tear him apart.

* * *

Yellow still had the habit of flinching whenever she was in the presence of weapons. It was ridiculous really, since her old master was once the head of all military defenses for all of Homeworld, but she knew just how genuine Quartzes can be with their threats and how no one would bat an eye if she got cracked by one.

But no one would ever dare hurt her here, would they?

Maybe if she failed them, they could.

Was this really the right decision to make? She knew that none of the Crystal Gems expected her to fight and that they would prefer her to be safe on the sidelines, but could she really take that? Standing off to the side and away from danger wasn't very different from what she experienced on Homeworld.

If she wanted to make things change for herself, the first thing she should do is learn the things that she was prohibited to learn back home.

She remembered watching Quartzes fight before and just how cruel it can become. The one thing that wasn't allowed to happen in training was cracking shattering one of your comrades. Everything else can be quickly fixed through a regeneration cycle. That made soldiers able to do anything else brutal, as long as it didn't involve damaging someone's gem.

Heads were lopped off, limbs were dismembered, hair torn apart, and humiliation of every kind occurred instead. Fierce sadistic smiles and raucous laughter ensued from the winners as well.

But the Crystal Gems were different . . . weren't they?

* * *

"If you wouldn't judge me for asking," Yellow said tentatively. "How did you even learn how to summon a weapon?"

"Huh?" Pearl said in genuine shock. She didn't think that Yellow would be interested, merely brush it off as some sort of strange defect that worked in her favor. "Why did you want to know? After all, if we're going to train you how to defend yourself, we should start with simple sword techniques or hand-to-hand combat if you're up for it."

"I was just thinking," Yellow mumbled as her gaze suddenly slipped to the floor. "Homeworld has always told me that summoning a weapon is solely reserved for the Gems who are made for it. But you . . . you certainly weren't made for combat and still I see you wield a spear like no other. How can that be?"

Pearl chuckled. "I simply became the first Gem to try." Her eyes grew steely as she continued, her hands clasping together tightly. "Before Rose took me in, I was constantly told the same things you were: that Pearls simply weren't built to capable of combat, or intelligence, or functioning independently on their own. But the first thing Rose told me was that they were lying. I wasn't programmed with those skills in mind, but I can actually learn to access them if I tried. That was the one thing that set me apart from other Pearls; _I tried._ I wasn't afraid of them if I knew that they were hiding our true potential. 'You can do anything you want to do,' that was what Rose always told me and Homeworld denied me. So I tried and I tried and never lost faith in tapping into the powers Homeworld claimed I lacked. And then I finally mastered it."

With a proud flourish, she cupped her hands around her gem and pulled out a dazzling spear. She had to conceal a couple of tears as she twirled it around. Yellow wasn't the first Pearl to witness her summon her infamous spear. And as it turns out, Pearl wasn't the only one of her kind who could summon a spear. She figured that Yellow might have something different, but no one knew just yet.

"Do you think I could learn to do that one day?" Yellow asked in a strangely meek voice. It was the first time that her usual smugness seemed to melt away.

"I'm not sure," Pearl's voice began to falter a bit. "I mean, because of what we are, summoning a weapon is a bit more difficult for us, but it's certainly possible! But I don't think we could even have time for that when Citrine is still a threat to us."

"You're right," Yellow sighed. "Besides, it might just be you who is capable of summoning a weapon. After all, you're the one and only Renegade. You're supposed to be above the rest of the Pearls."

"Don't say that!" Pearl shrieked, grabbing Yellow by the wrist. She could tell that she grabbed her a bit too roughly by the way the other Pearl flinched away from her but she didn't care right now. "There are far more rebellious Pearls that just me!"

"That's not possible!" Yellow cried, pulling away from Pearl's grasp. "You were the only recorded Renegade Pearl during the Rebellion. All the other Pearls were too afraid to end up like you!"

"They never recorded her, did they?" Pearl's voice suddenly dropped to a whisper.

"Recorded who?" Yellow asked nervously, thinking that she may strike a nerve.

"Come with me," was all that the Renegade said in reply. Her face became absolutely blank and devoid of the usual expressions she made most of the time. It was actually really unsettling.

Pearl headed towards the sacred Temple door and her gemstone illuminated brightly, causing the door to glow in response and split open. But it appeared that the two of them weren't going to stay in Pearl's room of waterfalls. Instead they traveled deeper and deeper into the Temple, through strange rooms that Yellow was too afraid to ask about.

Eventually, they reached a massive room that pulsed with red light that emanated from above. Bubbles upon bubbles were suspended above them, dangling in the air and containing several Gems that Yellow knew to be corrupted.

A certain bubble seemed to be the target of Pearl's vision. It was filled with almost grain-like shards that were sprinkled with light. Despite being hard to identify from the nearly microscopic pieces, Yellow could see the creamy smooth texture and milky white color. She could almost piece the shards together to see a round shape of a solid form.

It was the shards of a Pearl, hidden away from sight.

"Her name was Blue," Pearl began. She chuckled sadly before adding, "But her official title was Blue Diamond's Pearl, several millennia ago during the Rebellion."


	15. The Forgotten Tale

Yellow couldn't help but shrink back a little when she saw the floating shards resting inside the translucent bubble. It was almost like she could feel her own gemstone crumbling to pieces, despite being perfectly intact on her chest. She just couldn't imagine how it must've felt to be shattered, your entire being splintering apart and collapsing into dust until you completely vanished.

It was Yellow's worst fear back on Homeworld.

She felt so stupid to be so squeamish. She had seen several of her old master's subordinates get shattered before, the small bits of them collected into bubbles and yet their tiny semblance of a ghostly presence remaining in the air.

Pearl must've visited this Gem's bubble a million times.

Homeworld hardly had set up any memorials for the deceased. Almost ninety-five percent of the time, the shattered Gems simply faded into obscurity as they were bubbled, and it would be seen as foolish and impractical to grieve them, especially if they were painfully common. Those who died because of great treachery or failure were deeply scorned upon the moment after they are executed and become the next couple of years' great topic of free discussion until once again, obscurity overtakes them.

You couldn't even be bothered with if you were a Pearl and died. Most likely, it was because you were both outdated and severely needed a replacement, or you became unsatisfactory after a minor failure or transgression. Rarely, one died without their master's intention since most Pearls were ordered to follow their owner with absolute concentration. But if one did, their owner could simply purchase a new one and perhaps be used as an example of what their replacement should never be. After all, nothing is more foolish than getting yourself killed when you knew deeply that threats to your life were almost everywhere.

Actually still being significant after death was something almost unbelievable. Carrying a legacy was solely reserved for the upmost satisfactory elites, those who have accomplished so greatly that their Diamonds considered them ranked nearly at the same level as them. So being able to have your name printed in history recordings was absolutely incredible. Being remembered was a gift, and being remembered after death is a star-forsaken miracle.

So how could a Pearl ever be worthy of such a title, of such a memorial?

"She was a renegade Pearl, too?" Yellow asked softly, almost inaudible since she could neither believe that Blue was important to be given a name after death and that she was so close to what Gems considered a corpse.

"Almost, if she had the chance," Pearl answered solemnly. Her pale eyes were fixated onto the bubble, like shifting her gaze for even a moment might disgrace Blue's name. "She could've been a lot of things if she was able to survive, but for now, we shall know her as a great martyr. She saved my life."

"B-but you are the infamous Renegade," Yellow cried, absolutely flabbergasted. "You have a spear at your disposal and great knowledge of both combat and strategy! What sort of thing must've happened if you needed to be rescued?"

Pearl clasped her fingers together tightly before continuing. "I was captured by Blue Diamond once," she stated bluntly.

Yellow's eyes widened greatly. After a moment of wilting silence, she asked, "What would that be for?"

"Being the second-in-command of Rose Quartz had already put me in an vulnerable position in the Diamond Authority's eyes and what angered them even further was the fact that I was a Pearl at the same time. They believed that I could valuable in some form, either for information or perhaps ransom for Rose. Either way, they poofed me during a raid and seized my gemstone while I was dormant," Pearl replied softly.

Yellow had to bite her lip to keep herself in check. Never had she realized that such things occur during war. Most things that threaten Homeworld now could never rival them the way the rise of the Crystal Gems did. Yellow had never been alive to witness any of that war, but she could sometimes read snatches of ancient reports from Era 1. But now, she realized that all of those were written by very unreliable sources, or at least extremely biased ones. No one ever bothered to list the casualties the Crystal Gems suffered since they were the enemy. But Yellow couldn't believe that they could forget that there was a second rebellious Pearl besides the one standing in front of her right now.

"When I got locked up, I was considered difficult to guard and Blue Diamond requested a more personal approach to calm me down and keep the base quiet," Pearl continued, remaining so uncharacteristically stoic, now upholding the image one would suspect from a war veteran. "She sent her own Pearl to keep me in check."

All Yellow knew at this point was to keep quiet and let Pearl spill out her tale.

"She was at first just as scared as everyone else was and even a little pretentious, thinking all my ideals were completely unbelievable," she explained in a carefully even tone. "But I couldn't blame her since the idea back then was supposedly only in crazy fabricated tales. She always attempted to be civil with me, no matter how difficult or hysterical I was and during my imprisonment; I came to solely rely on her for companionship to combat the suffocating loneliness I faced.

"She was remarkably kind-hearted, almost was as lovely and innocent as Steven is. She simply possessed the kind of compassion and nurturing that was incredibly rare and even nonexistent during a time of war and bloodshed. Despite still being adamant about being the pristine Pearl her master expected her to be, she was patient and listened to everything I said and even took it into consideration as she was repeatedly mistreated by her Diamond.

"But she certainly wasn't perfect. One of the things she feared most at first was death, which was completely natural for Pearls like us."

Yellow nodded furtively. She understood the fear of death deeply. When anything and everything could lead to you being executed and absolutely no harm would befall upon those who harmed you, you learned to be wary and sometimes outright paranoid. That was what happened when you lived underneath the Diamond Authority.

And that was what happened when you happened to be a Pearl as well.

"She begged me to change my ideals about the protector of Rose Quartz for my own sake, not understanding how we Crystal Gems honored the dead and would gladly sacrifice ourselves for each other in times of harm. At the time, she could hardly be considered a heroine.

"But then several Quartzes threatened her life and thought of her as defective like me and intended to punish her for something as petty as that. That was when she first rebelled and refused to die at their hands. She managed to flee and even cracked one of their gemstones.

"But even after experiencing the thrill of defiance, she still couldn't understand my insistence of being loyal to Rose Quartz. She still begged me to preserve my own life above all else. Back then, I might've called that selfish, but now I believe that was simply the way she lived, since all she knew was serving her Diamond and had no one and nothing to protect in her life besides herself, and expected everyone else to uphold that kind of philosophy."

"If she was so stubborn about keeping herself alive, then how did she die?" Yellow asked tentatively.

"It was during my imprisonment that I learned to summon my signature spear," Pearl said proudly despite the obvious melancholy in her voice. "It was an absolute miracle and I certainly didn't hesitate to use to aid me in my escape. But right when I was about to escape, Blue stopped me . . . and then begged me to bring her along as well. She wanted to be a Crystal Gem so her life could be worthy of preserving because of honor instead of fear like before.

"I remember the last time I saw her. We had gotten cornered and my gemstone was cracked, leaving me completely defenseless. But Blue offered to protect me and summoned a spear just like mine. It was incredible, seeing someone else accomplish all the things I was able to accomplish.

"After I escaped, I waited so long for her to return to me. I wanted to show her so many things, introduce her to so many Gems, and especially introduce her to Rose Quartz. So many things she was never able to see. I discovered her shards when a troop returned from a raid."

Yellow's response broke the somber silence that followed. "At least she was able to face what she had always feared in the first place. And now she is the first Pearl to be valued even after death."

"But Homeworld never even to bother to record her in their star-forsaken reports," Pearl said as she suddenly gritted her teeth in seething anger. "We Crystal Gems are the only ones to ever know of her story, of her sacrifice, of everything she wasn't able to see or experience."

"But I know now," Yellow whispered meekly. "And I'm alive right now. And I'll be able to see all things she missed out on. And now you won't have to be the only renegade Pearl. Because as long as I'm able to stand here with you, I'll make sure to make myself worthy of living just like she did."

Tears began to spring forth from the corners of Pearl's eyes and Yellow was afraid she might start crying, because if she did, Yellow would be absolutely helpless to stop herself from crying as well.

After some more obligatory silence for mourning, Yellow suddenly felt a pair of bony arms wrap around her shoulders and pull her forward. Despite knowing how much she despised physical contact, Yellow tried her best to return the hug, awkwardly entwining her arms around Pearl's waist and carefully balancing her chin on her shoulder so her mouth wouldn't get smothered by her peachy hair.

The warmth they shared was incredibly unfamiliar to Yellow. But it also felt right somehow, despite the obvious awkwardness of it.

Pearl really needed this, she could tell. And Yellow actually felt happy being able to provide it for her.

Yellow never realized how much she missed being needed until now.


	16. So Simple to Break

Everyone gathered in the living room to wait as Pearl and Yellow prepared for training inside the Temple. They clearly seemed to be taking a long time and Steven was too scared to go inside and check on them; he couldn't imagine what kinds of things they could be discussing.

"Why can't we just warp to the Arena without them?" Amethyst whined as she snatched another bag of potato chips off the coffee table and proceeded to gobble them down, fistful by fistful.

"They're probably just having a moment," Steven said cheerfully. "I mean, Pearls must have a special connection or something, right?"

"On Homeworld, no one needs Pearls to interact with another," Jasper sniffed dismissively. "I guess that was one of the tactics the Diamond Authority used to prevent any uprisings of lower-class Gems."

"Ha, I bet if I was on Homeworld right now, I can lead my own rebellion for all the lower-ranked Gems!" Peridot cried dramatically, springing up on her feet for added effect, but ended up accidentally smacking both Lapis and Garnet on the head with her outstretched arms. Luckily, neither of them seemed to even acknowledge the clumsy mistake.

"What kinds of uses have you even been making with your newfound powers?" Jasper challenged her with a cocky look.

At first when Jasper joined the team, she was largely unimpressed with Peridot and believed her to be virtually useless and a simple nuisance, disappointed in knowing that she used to be associated with a much more competent and calculating subordinate but was now stuck with this seemingly unrecognizable imbecile. Ever since then, Peridot was dead set on gaining Jasper's respect again despite lacking the limb enhancers that once gave her authority over the Quartz soldier. Seeing an Era 2 Peridot capable of the same abilities as her predecessors certainly grabbed her former superior's attention but all possible form of respect dissipated when Jasper realized that Peridot couldn't properly control it, practically setting her at the same level as Steven, perhaps even lower.

"I'll have you know I have been able to send a spoon flying in the barn earlier! I can prove it! Lapis was a clear witness, weren't you, Lapis?" the green Gem shouted all-too-passionately.

The blue Gem responded to her roommate's dramatic case with a deadpan stare that everyone around was used to except Jasper, who flinched slightly. "Yeah, the spoon ended up hitting me on the side of the head," she said witheringly.

Peridot's grin grew wider. "At first, I thought she was mad, but we've been making progress with her frequent anger management problems! Making meep-morps are a guaranteed soothing technique!"

"How impressive," Jasper deadpanned with a roll of her eyes.

Peridot's signature grin drooped a little and she sat back down, nestling herself in between Garnet and Lapis once again. It was saddening to see her try so hard and still fail when it comes to Jasper's nigh-impossible standards.

"Hey, don't pick on her like that," Lapis spoke up, surprising everyone with the hint of emotion in her voice that she usually reserved for Steven's ears only. "She made a lot of progress lately, I can confirm, and she's gotten farther than any Era 2 Gem could, who aren't even aware of their latent powers. Peridot is special, but you're too scared to acknowledge that because you're afraid that would end up putting her at a higher position of value here in the Crystal Gems. But as renegades, as free Gems, we don't ever need to worry about who is more valuable and who is more expendable. So you have no right to put Peridot down like that, Jasper. We're not on Homeworld anymore and you're certainly not in control like before. Accept that for once."

Everyone went dead silent after hearing that prolonged but certainly well-needed lecture that was spoken by the Gem who reserved all her meaningful words for young Steven. Even the young boy was flabbergasted as well. Jasper bit her lip and shrank back a little; if there was anyone in the Crystal Gems who could keep her in check, it was Lapis. Recently, their toxic scars have healed after they realized that they don't need each other for any kind of strength and have formed a reluctant and definitely fragile bond that was mostly held together by obligation to keep peace in the Temple. The rest of the team simply have found it better if both Jasper and Lapis keep away from each other from now on, despite Steven finding it unbearable at times. This was perhaps the most Lapis even spoke to Jasper. And admittedly, it was quite impressive.

Peridot squealed in delight and clung onto her roommate's arm in gratitude, tears forming at the edges of her eyes after hearing all the words she wished she could hear from the others. Even Steven hasn't ever said that to her and she could create a million meep-morps describing all the emotions she felt right now. Lapis simply regarded the sudden physical contact with silent contentment.

"Do you think that Yellow could one day be at the same level as Pearl one day?" Steven asked. "Can you imagine how awesome that would be?"

"That would certainly take a long time," Garnet mused. "I wasn't there to see Pearl during her earlier days of training, but Rose told me that Gems like her definitely weren't built for it. But I remember when I first laid eyes upon her, I was absolutely terrified at her prowess."

"Yellow is definitely a different Gem entirely from Pearl, though," Amethyst piped up. "She might slow us down sometimes."

"I won't let that happen!" Steven cried indignantly. "I remember when I used to think all I ever did was preventing you guys from carrying out a mission properly. But the more I kept thinking that, the truer it ended up becoming. I refuse to let Yellow make that same mistake!"

"Do you really think that Citrine is going to wait until Yellow is fully trained to attack us again? You could've been in great harm last time," Lapis replied, a serious glint in her eyes.

"Maybe not," Steven admitted woefully. "But this is the best way for her to feel useful to the team! She's really scared of becoming a nuisance to us and wants to regain a sense of purpose in her existence."

"Hopefully, she'll be able to do that," Jasper said gruffly, gaze dropping to the floor. "If she can't ever feel useful to us, then we're going to end up fearing the worst . . ."

"What's the worst?" Steven piped up, sudden curiosity sparking to life in his eyes.

Garnet, Jasper, Lapis, and Peridot all bit their lip nervously. Both Steven and Amethyst stared at them rather blankly, as there is something they clearly didn't know, having never lived on Homeworld.

"On Homeworld," Garnet began quietly. "The Diamond Authority could easily mark whose life was of greater value, and who could be easily replaced. You were given a role in helping maintain the empire, and your whole life ends up revolving around that one purpose and driving yourself to fulfill it. That was how they controlled you; if you thought of nothing else but fulfilling your role, there was no time to question the kind of rules set before you.

"It was even harder when you had the role Pearls served. Their entire existence revolved around another Gem; to them, all that matters is their happiness. Pearls were programmed to give their life to their master if asked, without hesitation. They viewed that kind of sacrifice as the ultimate way to go out.

"The moment they begin to feel useless, or some sort of burden to the Gem they devoted themselves to, their first instinct is to shatter themselves."

Steven's eyes widened, jaw dropping slightly. Amethyst seemed to have a look of surprise printed on her face as well, but it was clear that she had heard these kind of horrible tragedies before and grew used to them.

"The more you talk about Homeworld, the more grateful I feel that I was made here," Amethyst chuckled flippantly, ignoring the bleakness that seemed to hang in the air.

"But that's so horrible!" Steven cried. "You could simply throw away your life so easily when you were a Pearl! How many times was our Pearl close to committing suicide?"

"Many times," Garnet stated straightforward. "As much as Pearl hates to admit it, it's very hard to drop old habits, especially if they were programmed inside you."

"And it's not just Pearls," Jasper interjected. "Even the highest-ranking soldiers end up collapsing inside when they begin to feel inferior. Shattering yourself was always taught as the right thing to do when your presence was no longer needed on Homeworld; you would end up wanting to do it yourself in complete privacy than be executed coldly in front of everyone. It was thought of as the better fate."

"What kinds of things were you even taught on Homeworld?" Steven whispered in shock.

"Lots of things," Lapis said blankly and everyone else nodded unanimously along with her.

"I think we're ready to go," Pearl's chipper voice interrupted as everyone turned to see both her and Yellow approaching the Warp Pad, oblivious to the dark mood that settled over the house.

"I hope I won't end up messing up too badly today," Yellow said meekly, chuckling lightheartedly. The words slipped out of her mouth so easily but it hit Steven so hard.

Everyone silently got up and climbed onto the Warp Pad, still thinking the worst thoughts. Steven ended up standing next to Yellow, looking up at the stone embedded on her chest. Never had he realized just how delicate it was. It would be so easily to find a harder substance and thrust it against the life source.

The gemstone was almost as fragile as her psyche.

He shook the dark thoughts out of his head, finding himself a reason to smile again.

If Yellow ever ended up driving herself into self-loathing and despair, he'll just have to be one to give her the warmth of hope.


	17. Slow Beginnings

Yellow didn't know much about humans, and honestly, was never interested in learning about them. There were hardly any Gems who needed to study any life-forms that were not of the superior Gem race, unless the inhabitants of the planet they needed to harvest were proving themselves to be a bit stubborn when it came to dying out. When those species eventually went extinct, they were quickly forgotten and their planet becomes of a part of the glorious Homeworld Empire. After all, it was easier to slay them when you didn't bother to get attached to them.

The Diamonds learned that quickly after what happened with Earth and the Crystal Gems. So any kind of learning and understanding towards otherworldly species that are not Gems was forbidden afterwards.

Here was what Yellow knew about humans so far: they had many requirements to fulfill in order to stay alive and thrive, some of which seemed ridiculous to Yellow, such as them swallowing other organic life-forms and then excreting them out afterwards. At first, Yellow thought of such a process was pointless and tedious, but Steven explained that humans needed to absorb special components of their feed in order to survive and their body ends up disposing of the unneeded parts of it. What a repulsive necessity that humans must suffer through every day of their pitifully short lifespan!

Amethyst apparently thought it was funny that she and Pearl shared the same viewpoints towards eating and liked to provoke Yellow by swallowing some of humanity's "food" right in front of her, and if she felt extremely playful, outright offer some to Yellow even after she voiced her opinion of the unnecessary process that was called human digestion.

"But you have to make an exception for lemons, right?" the purple Gem said once, waving a yellow-tinted Earth citrus that was unremarkably a similar color to Yellow Pearl herself. "After all, your own namesake would be a trademark of yours, huh, Lemon?"

"Please stop calling me that," Yellow mumbled through gritted teeth. She didn't understand the connection towards herself and the bitter fruit that Amethyst loved to compare her to. She also failed to comprehend how Amethyst could compare Pearl to a harsh-tasting white powder that often filled Steven's kitchen cupboards and featured in his more savory foods he cooked.

What were the similarities between Pearl and "salt"?

But getting back to the subject at hand, what Yellow didn't expect from humans was how capable they were of combat and self-defense. She supposed it was necessary when the Rebellion was in full-swing, and humanity needed some defense against the Homeworld Gems when the Crystal Gems couldn't protect them, but she assumed that they would've became complacent after their planet was saved and began to depend on the immortal Crystal Gems to help them thrive against the brutal monsters that lurked the shadows of Earth. But as it turns out, that wasn't true at all.

Connie Maheswaran, one of Pearl's pupils alongside Steven, proved herself to be a worthy swordfighter and declared herself to be Steven's protector and who at the same time, Steven is her protector. It was a strange concept to boast, to say the least, but Yellow decided not to question it, like most of the things she encountered when living with the Crystal Gems.

"It's so exciting that Pearl is going to teach you how to fight as well!" the young human girl cried in glee. Yellow tried her best not to flinch when the child grabbed onto her hands and decided to plaster on a sweet smile for her.

"I didn't expect that humans had their own ways of combat," Yellow muttered underneath her breath once Connie found her way towards Steven.

"I know humans can be extremely confusing at times," Pearl chuckled, her laugh sounding slightly forced, like the topic wasn't as lighthearted as her voice foretold it was. "But Rose once told me that they already overflowed with their own special traits, such as their resourcefulness, their integrity, and their special relationships they formed towards each other. And they have so much potential for lots more."

"Do you genuinely believe that or was it something you picked up when serving her?" Yellow asked. There were many things Pearls believed in, but they usually only believed it when their masters tell them to.

There was an uncomfortable silence before Pearl answered. "Perhaps I only agreed with her at first because I loved her so much and wanted to please her. It took her me so many years to truly understand what she meant. I even had to lose her in the process as well. But sometimes you could compare humanity to us as Pearls. We both are looked down upon and are abundant in numbers but believed to be lacking in skills and uses. But they so deeply underestimate us: both humans and Pearls. Saying they are weak would almost be the same as calling ourselves weak."

"But what if I am weak compared to you?" Yellow asked meekly. She had spent so many years living as the Crystal Gems' enemy and now she was trying to become a warrior, which was something so radically different than what she had been doing her entire life. Maybe she was out of her mind for attempting such a thing. Maybe doing all of this would end up distracting them from the true objective: stopping Citrine.

"Never say that," Pearl declared, placing a hand on Yellow's shoulder, almost as if she was an encouraging mother. "I had thought the exact same when I was in your position, forced to pick up a sword and do something I was nearly incapable of, but Rose helped to strive through. And now I am here to help you strive through."

Yellow stopped biting her lip in anxiety and nodded furiously. Now there was no time to hold back. There was no time to hesitate. There was only time to prepare.

* * *

"Grip the sword tighter," Pearl instructed as Yellow's fingers fidgeted around the handle of the weapon. "You have to calm your nerves before you begin to fight. You can't afford to crack under pressure."

"Remember, we're right here to help if you feel like you can't do it!" Steven cried out in encouragement.

"This is actually really exciting," Connie whispered under her breath as she took her place next to Steven on the seats. "In the end, it'll be like having two Pearls to look after us."

"Well, Yellow still has no idea how humans work so I don't think we can trust her to look after us just yet," Steven said tentatively, still remembering how she used to keep following him into the bathroom.

"What is that supposed to be?" Yellow shrieked as she pointed towards the holographic clone Pearl constructed.

"Pearl creates those to help us train," Connie answered immediately like she was once again a student in her middle school classes.

"Aren't you able to make holograms too?" Steven asked with a raised eyebrow. Was this related to how Pearl was from Era 1 and Yellow was made in Era 2?

"Of course I can!" Yellow snapped indignantly, the sharp temper she was known for suddenly returning. "But I never realized we could make ours out to be sentient!"

"It's a difficult process indeed, but as long as you can program your clone to do EXACTLY what you need it to do, it can prove they can be very useful," Pearl said proudly. "Are you ready?"

After a reluctant nod that seemed far too forced, the Pearl clone charged forward and made her first strike. A high-pitched squeak escaped Yellow's mouth before she blocked the attack smoothly, the metals of the swords clashing together with a sharp bang.

"That was awesome!" Steven and Connie cried out in encouragement from the sidelines.

In the back, Amethyst whooped loudly while biting into what looked like another lemon (Yellow must assume she brought a lemon to training just to mock her) while Jasper gave a slightly impressed look, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"There's a still a lot more to learn, you know," Pearl reminded her pupil and Yellow nodded back grimly.

She remembered accompanying her Diamond to various training arenas to witness Gem soldiers of many different castes prepare themselves for fighting. Those were extremely frightening experiences, watching Gems get poofed in several grotesque and sometimes even humiliating ways. Luckily, shattering and cracking gemstones were absolutely forbidden but there were many close calls. It was a bustling, dangerous place for someone like Yellow, who was frail and slender, and one could easily dissipate their form just by witnessing such fights from the sidelines.

Yellow was extremely thankful for the fact that this arena was not only so decrepit that it was nearly unrecognizable from its former glory but that it was also completely abandoned and left to rot. It surely wasn't a pretty sight but anything was better than being surrounded by bloodthirsty brutes whose only purpose was to attack and slaughter.

But it also made her wonder though as well: would she end up becoming just like the Quartzes she used to fear once all of this was over?


	18. The Mind of the Enemy

There were many things Citrine had to accept wholeheartedly, just to make sure she wouldn't go absolutely insane.

* * *

1\. There was, as far as she knew, absolutely no way for her to return to Homeworld or even any Homeworld-owned colony. She suddenly began to wish she had flight capabilities like a Lapis Lazuli, but that would be utterly foolish, since she hardly ever studied enough star maps to calculate how exactly to guide herself home through nothing but sheer labor.

2\. She was also completely alone. Well, of course she was surrounded by a plethora of living creatures, but they could hardly count when she was an esteemed warrior from an extremely advanced race of galactic conquerors and the rest of the . . . animals . . . around her were obviously intellectually inferior. But of course, she wasn't the only Gem on this Earth . . . but she might as well count as the only sane Gem on this wretched planet.

3\. Everyone she once knew was dead. She had seen all their shards, all of their pitiful final resting places, scattered across this disgusting Earth soil. She knew she didn't know all of them well, especially when considering she was relatively young Gem, this assignment perhaps only being her fifth or sixth one, but she knew that none of them deserved to go out. . . like this. When an esteemed warrior had met their untimely end, it would be far more fitting for it to be during a glorious sacrifice for their Diamond, in the midst of battle, dying with bravado and glory so that no one would discard your remains and forget about you, which was typical if you were unlucky enough to be a common Gem. Dying during a ship crash, right before any action or glory of an invasion begins . . . was pitiful. More than pitiful in fact, it was an absolute disgrace, utterly blasphemous that their potential was all wasted so quickly, and worse, by something as horrendous as that fusion.

4\. There was absolutely no way to complete the original mission. Citrine possibly can't investigate what happened to the Cluster and solve the situation of its delay _by herself_. That would be impossible, and worst of all, deadly since she knew there was no way to get off this planet, so completing the objective would be a suicide mission.

* * *

If there was anything she can do while she was perpetually stranded on this planet without any way to make contact with Homeworld and surrounded by unfamiliar environments, it was to exact revenge with the people who caused her life to descend into absolute disarray.

She knew what she was up against at this point: a foreign "mixed-Gem" fusion, Jasper of impressive size and valor, an obviously defective Amethyst, a Lapis Lazuli who appeared to be most normal of the group, a Peridot that was of Era 2 origins that lacked the limb enhancers that were supposed to make her of the same strength as her predecessors but was somehow stupid enough to lose them, a Pearl that appeared to be defective as well, audacious enough to carry a spear, a child of . . . strange origins. And of course, her Diamond's Pearl appeared to be one of their prisoners. That seemed to be the best explanation of why she was in their midst. But Citrine had to wonder why exactly they would need her.

Torture her for information? Could that Pearl carry enough vital knowledge of her Diamond's plans to exterminate the Crystal Gems? Would Yellow Diamond be foolish enough to have scraps of her plan fed to her Pearl? Then again, her Diamond was practical enough to have her Pearl serve more efficient purposes rather than stand around and be pretty (although Citrine had to admit that Pearl was talented at that, too) so it could be possible she downloaded some of her plans into her Pearl for safekeeping.

Perhaps the Crystal Gems decided that there was no point in wasting a discarded Pearl and claimed her? But then again, they already had another Pearl, and that one was twisted enough to break her predetermined purpose and take up arms. It would be strange to have one Pearl serve their original purpose and the other be allowed to be completely defective.

What if the Crystal Gems took in an abandoned Gem and utilized their brainwashing technique upon her, wanting her to turn into what the rogue Pearl was? Was it out of pity? Was it out of pragmatic purposes? Either way, Yellow Diamond's Pearl had been stripped of her intended role and was now in the clutches of insane rebels.

Such a pretty thing didn't deserve to go through that. Citrine couldn't imagine what kind of torture she must be undergoing right now. What a waste of such a beautiful model.

* * *

She needed to discern who was weak enough to attack first and who needed to be saved for last. If she eliminated the invaluable ones quickly, she can save enough energy to take on the more formidable ones.

She wasn't going to make the same mistake as before. If she didn't know what exactly the human-appearing fusion was made of, or what it can supposedly do, then there was no need for senseless curiosity to turn fatal. She needed to study him a bit more before she figured out what to do with him.

The foreign fusion was something Citrine had never witnessed before. She only seen such a phenomena recorded through ancient reports and only knew enough to see that the fusion was composed of a Sapphire and a Ruby and its gemstones were of a completely different type entirely, something that wasn't ever able to be made naturally in a Kindergarten: a Garnet. Like Citrine had explained to herself earlier, there was no point in attacking she barely understands; that kind of recklessness would only result in a doomed demise.

Citrine was extremely reluctant to attack Jasper, especially since she knew her as a legend back on Homeworld. She was famed as the paragon of perfection, what every Quartz should strive to be. Not only it would be foolish to fight someone who was several levels above her, it would be incredibly hard to simply gain the motivation to do such a thing. When Citrine thought about it, the idea simply felt blasphemous and emotionally conflicting. So she decided, if there was a chance to spare or redeem Jasper, she would do it.

The Amethyst must be easy, she has to be. Simply looking at her made Citrine feel utter shame being the same league as her. She was an absolute embarrassment to their kind, something that should be erased and forgotten, a representation of what incompetence does in the Kindergartens. Citrine knew there was no point in hesitating at all when it came to her, and the chance of losing was so minimal, it was practically laughable. Perhaps she really would be the first one to go.

Peridots had no knowledge of self-defense; neither would it be in their programming to learn how. Best of all, this particular Peridot lacked the limb enhancers needed to attack and escape like the most of her cowardly kind did. Being a model of Era 2, she was practically more of an obstacle than a true opponent. In fact, all Citrine really had to do to get rid of her is threaten her and she would be on her hands and knees, begging for mercy. It was almost laughably easy, insulting even.

Citrine knew what Lapis Lazuli types are capable of . . . so there was no point in even trying to measure the odds.

The Pearls . . . were interesting cases, to say the least.

Citrine had heard war legends before about the Rebellion, but it always varied according to who was speaking, so details get so twisted that it was simply a tangle of ambiguous events and rose-tinted victories that washed out the losses. But one tale that always stood out was the legend of the Renegade Pearl. Those who were prestigious enough to own them always used the story to frighten their Pearls into submission, reminding them of what they could become if they were to go rogue and backstab their masters.

And when Citrine attacked the human-Gem fusion and encountered the Crystal Gems who guarded him, she knew that she had finally witnessed her in the flesh.

The Renegade Pearl may have been a mere Pearl and was therefore simply not programmed to have knowledge of combat. But what made her such a legend during the war was that she _learned_ , she learned how to fight and prevail, learned to take down hordes of warrior castes at an alarming speed. Her graceful and lithe form even helped her during such battles, making her moves almost dance-like.

She was a challenge. An especially large one when Citrine considered the fact that she never witnessed her in action before. She was an unpredictable case.

But the other Pearl, the one that once belonged to her Diamond, the one who was undoubtedly replaced and forgotten at this point, was easy. There was no doubt that she was made to be perfect by her Diamond and therefore, functioned properly as a Pearl. She was absolutely no threat at all.

Still . . . Citrine felt reluctant to hurt her. After all, it would be such a crime to mar such a lovely face. Yellow Diamond certainly knew how to personalize her servants.

And even so, she wasn't even an enemy at all! She was a survivor of the invasion and the only other Homeworld Gem left on this miserable planet. And she was loyal to Yellow Diamond as well, provided if the Crystal Gems haven't corrupted her yet.

It really would be painful to harm her, especially when Citrine considered the fact that she had always desired a Pearl of her own, and that Yellow Diamond surely must've replaced her by now.

A smirk began to form on Citrine's face. Perhaps her Diamond wouldn't mind if she claimed her former servant.


	19. What Defines a Warrior

Yellow often found the nighttime periods on Earth to be a lot more confusing than the daytime period. Mostly, she found herself longing for daylight because at least during those times, the Crystal Temple was brightened with both sunlight and life.

Most of the Crystal Gems used the night periods to roam around the Crystal Temple and sometimes even took the time to do patrols around the Earth, checking for trouble, and simply leaving Steven to doze off to wherever humans found pleasing in sleep.

Yellow remembered being confused about Steven's required rest cycles and desperate for something to busy her while the night periods stretched on, begged him to stay up with her.

"I'm sorry, Yellow," the young boy apologized. "Maybe if I was younger, I would want to stay up with you, but humans really can't skip a whole night of sleep. Pearl would probably go berserk on me."

"But I'm not used to spending all these nights doing absolutely nothing," Yellow cried. "On Homeworld, there was always something to keep me moving, some order to fulfill or something to wait for. I don't understand why the Earth seems to shut down when the sky grows dark. And why do the Crystal Gems do the same?"

"Humans just need to shut down sometimes to maintain their health," Steven explained wearily, his lack of sleep showing as Yellow continued to keep him up. "The Crystal Gems understand that and follow suit. Amethyst really likes sleeping, so why don't you try that?"

Sleeping proves to be an impossible feat for Yellow, however. At first, she thinks that slipping into such a state would be extremely simple, given the steps required for it, and even had the audacity to believe that it's just as easy as standing statue-still for one's master. But as it turns out, you're required to be comfortable when you're searching for rest and lying stiffly like a board doesn't seem to qualify. Steven suggested tossing and turning for the right position and even demonstrates for her, but Yellow is quickly disgusted at how ungraceful it looks.

"You're not supposed to look pretty while you're doing it, Yellow," Steven said in exasperation. "You're supposed to be comfortable."

"But how could I be comfortable when I know I look absolutely abhorrent when I'm curled into a ball with my mouth wide open, drool peeking out at the corners?" Yellow screeched.

"I DON'T DROOL!"

Amethyst volunteered to help with the sleeping lessons, mostly because for one, she found it amusing, and two, she desired for a repeat of Pearl's situation with the holographic dreaming with Yellow.

"What's so desirable about lying down on the floor in an incomprehensible tangle of limbs, waiting to slip into a comatose state?" Yellow asked.

"It passes the time," Amethyst drawled, shrugging her shoulders. "Besides, do you really want to spend nine to twelve hours wandering around a place that's basically shut down until the sun rises?"

Eventually, even Amethyst grows impatient with the lessons and decides to let Yellow do her own thing during the night since she's definitely not going to learn to sleep, or more importantly, dream a hilarious situation.

"I really despise the night now," Yellow mumbled as she stared out the window, darkness blanketing the world and sending all humans into a rest cycle, including Steven, who indeed drooled as he slept. He also seemed to let out an extremely nasal roar, almost alerted Yellow enough to make her believe he was in pain, but it turns out to be simply a sign that his sleep cycle has progressed into a deep point and it would be easy to disturb him.

Eventually, Yellow decides there's no point in guarding him while he slept, since he's already made it apparent that he neither needs it nor desires it.

"I'm clearly not needed in the house or in the Crystal Temple," Yellow muttered to herself.

Pearl spent her nights in her room, organizing her weapon collection meticulously and fighting the urge to emerge from the Temple and protect Steven as he slept, which has miraculously regressed quite a bit, but certainly not to the point where it's completely solved. Amethyst would sleep, as always, or maybe even play around in her junk and catch the things that escape from Pearl's fountains and throw them into her piles and likely forget them. Garnet . . . now that Yellow thinks about it, she doesn't exactly know what she does, but doesn't desire to know about it.

"Since I'm not needed until daylight finally arrives," Yellow mused. "I can at least get used to the alone time I'm rewarded with."

Unfortunately, Yellow didn't really know what one would do with alone time. On Homeworld, it was a necessity to remain attached to her Diamond's shadow, to the point where she didn't understand what "being alone" essentially was. Being alone in the Kindergarten certainly didn't do any good for her, either, since she spent that time contemplating suicide.

Was there really anything to do?

With Steven's "snoring" echoing in the background, Yellow found staying in the house uncomfortable and decided to leave so she wouldn't disturb him. But she didn't feel comfortable barging into Pearl's room either, especially since admitting to her fighting mentor that she was suffering from itching boredom would certainly be embarrassing. She didn't need Pearl to view her like a child that needed to be coddled.

Eventually, there didn't seem to be any choice but to leave the Temple and return once dawn breaks and warmth and life would return to the home once again. Yellow couldn't comprehend time as well as the other Gems did, but knew that the sky would be able to tell her when it would right for her to return. Admittedly, although Yellow abhorred the night, the velvety black sky pinpricked with white was truly a sight to behold. Secretly, she wondered what the sunrise would look like, and if it was just as lovely as the midnight did.

* * *

Yellow decided to visit a familiar place while she waited for dawn since traveling the planet when darkness has overtaken it completely alone frightened her immensely. She warped herself to the Sky Arena, which looked slightly ominous with the night sky cloaking it in blackness. Yellow luckily summoned light from her gemstone in order to comfort herself and keep her vision clear.

As she gazed down at her gemstone, she remembered watching Pearl whisk out her dazzling spear from her own gemstone, and regarding that as a miracle in her mind. Something that she had been previously told was a deluded fantasy, completely unfathomable in real life. Pearl had told her teaching her how to do it would be saved for later since teaching Steven had been a strenuous battle for him to do it properly. After all, she needed to learn the essential basics very quickly before Citrine becomes a threat again. But seeing Pearl being able to summon a weapon had looked so dazzling and wondrous, Yellow couldn't resist practicing for herself.

After all, Yellow had doubts that she would really be able to fit the mold of a warrior as easily as Pearl did. This was the best way to test it.

The light emitting from Yellow's chest became fiercer, almost blinding Yellow, and she cupped her hands around her gem, desperately searching if there was anything to grab onto. She tried to will the light to harden but it remained intangible as ever, furiously slipping through her fingers as if to taunt her.

Clenching her teeth in frustration, she stopped trying and the light faded, almost like it was reflecting her mood. She needed to calm herself down. Wasn't this natural? After all, Pearls weren't designed to carry weapons so of course Yellow wouldn't be able to do it instantly. But even Steven, who had the disadvantage of being half-human, making his body and powers were completely unpredictable, could summon a weapon, albeit after much training and figuring out what his trigger was.

What was Yellow's trigger? It certainly wasn't anger or frustration, since it was all she could feel right now.

Her face fell into her hands. She didn't have the mindset of a warrior. She didn't even want to fight in the first place; it was simply seen as her only choice due to what was happening. In fact, warfare frightened her deeply. She didn't have the liberty of showing it, however, since her Diamond was fond of military bravado and praised strong warriors, but being surrounding by such brutality, constant threats being made to her, knowing that she was completely helpless against them, had made her flinch at the very idea of battle.

Now combat was supposed to be part of her daily routine. Even once Citrine is handled, there's no doubt that the war between Earth and Homeworld would continue and the Crystal Gems would expect her to fight with them. And worse, Earth wasn't a completely perfect place, since terrifying monsters that once had the liberty to be called Gems still roamed around, screaming in pain and attacking anything that moved out of sheer helplessness. Could Yellow truly condemn herself to that life like Pearl did? Could she live up to the same ideals of freedom and selflessness without ever fretting for her own safety?

Did Yellow deserve to be a renegade Pearl, especially when she only desired to fight out of desperation and had very little to protect?

No matter how many times she tried to convince herself otherwise, Yellow wasn't Pearl. She never dreamed of tearing away at the chains that restrained all Pearls—in fact, she once lived quite comfortably in them, oblivious to what injustice she was faced with—and she never aspired to be a hero or a defender of Earth's beauty. In fact, she didn't even get a chance to fully explore what she would be defending! Most of the things she's seen so far have been completely baffling to her. What sort of Crystal Gem was that? She didn't even want to get started on how she would react if she was forced to interact with humans!

She should really stop lying to herself, because in truth, she wasn't a warrior. She wasn't a renegade. It even took her a couple of weeks to realize how her kind has been oppressed. She didn't deserve to be a Crystal Gem.

"Someone as pretty as you don't deserve to be without a master to keep her in check," an icy voice slithered up Yellow's neck and hissed into her ears.

She didn't have time to react before her body was knocked onto the floor, part of her back tearing open and destabilizing her physical form. She looked wearily up to see her attacker cloaked in darkness, carrying a vicious scythe that gleamed underneath the moonlight. Yellow cursed at herself silently for being so stupid to trek around Earth alone and unguarded and berated herself even more harshly for being weak enough to get captured so easily.

If she ever got out of this, she wouldn't even be able to have the self-confidence to touch a sword again.

"Don't worry," Citrine whispered harshly as she watched Yellow's physical form dissolve into dust, leaving behind her gem unscathed on the floor. "I don't intend to hurt prisoners of the Crystal Gems. You'll be thankful for me once you wake up."


	20. Astral Communication

**A/N: I have to watch the leaked Steven Bomb, I just can't wait anymore! Besides, everyone else has already watched it and is still planning to support the episode release, so no harm, no foul.**

 ***Watches the episodes**

 ***Sees Blue Pearl and Blue Diamond on the screen**

 ***Gets further characterization on both the Diamonds**

 ***Sees Blue Pearl is again, alive and well**

 ***Slowly watches all head-canons come crashing down**

 ***Quietly labels the series AU before anyone makes an annoying review on how "inaccurate" the story is without checking the publication date.**

 **Well, wasn't that Steven Bomb amazing?**

 ***Slowly thinks to myself, "I made everyone cry for absolutely no reason."**

* * *

Darkness cloaked Steven's body, obscuring his senses and filling with a dreary sort of numbness. But he wasn't scared. The darkness comforted him, soothed him, took him to a place where almost nothing mattered and nothing ever will harm him. It felt so cozy, so dreamy.

"She'll understand once she wakes up," a harsh voice slithered up Steven's spine, disturbing his supposed peace.

The young boy blinked, fear suddenly flowing into his veins and woke him from the internal rest his mind took him.

"Hopefully, that defect hadn't corrupted her yet. It would be a complete waste of a perfectly good Pearl," the voice continued.

Steven recognized it, but when he cried out her name, all which came out of his mouth was silence.

Blurred images passed over his eyes, bright light harshly juxtaposed with the familiar darkness he was once used to.

 _And just when I thought I was going to have a dreamless sleep._

Suddenly, an image before him clarified, revealing a horrifying sight. Held in front of his eyes by hands that were certainly too thick and beefy to be his, was a smooth round gemstone that was a slightly yellow-tinted creamy white.

Although the gemstone remained completely silent, Steven couldn't help but feel that by the way it was glowing, it was screaming, _"Help me!"_

A familiar scream filled his ears, shrill and high-pitched before all the sounds and the colors and the light suddenly switched off, like someone decided it was too much to bear and simply turned off the horrifying display before him, like it was nothing but a horror movie.

* * *

His eyes snapped open to finally feel a stinging pain on his cheek. A purplish bruise bloomed to color his drool-stained cheeks.

"Ow!" the young boy cried in pain, biting his lip to keep himself from making too much noise. His vision cleared to see Pearl's frantic face above his, her nose close enough to nearly stab his eye out.

" . . . Pearl . . . did you just—" Steven slowly muttered once he realized that it was Pearl's hand that sharply striked his skin, the same hand that caressed him when he awoke from nightmares, the same hand that ruffled his hair and gripped him by the shoulders to console him when he was scared.

"Hey, how come you can slap him to switch off his shutdown mode but I can't?" Jasper's gruff voice interrupted them from afar.

"I'm sorry I had to do that, Steven, you know I would never do that in normal circumstances but the terrible thing is that this is not a normal circumstance and I'm afraid to tell you because I know you would panic far more than I am right now but I think I'm handling my anxiety a bit better now, don't you think? But that's not the important thing! Garnet searched all over the Temple and I checked my room a dozen times over and Jasper scoured the Sky Arena and we even told Lapis and Peridot to search in the barn, even we all know that would be extremely illogical, Peridot certainly did, but I was so scared I told her to completely throw out logic because this is an absolutely tragic emergency! You just don't understand, Steven!"

"Maybe he'll understand if you told what was going on!" Amethyst cried out in frustration. She clutched her forehead like she had a massive headache, catching a few silvery strands of hair between her fingers. She wasn't even mocking Pearl in her usual tone, instead lashing out in genuine anger and frustration, which Steven knew to be a rarity. If Amethyst wasn't able to shrug off a situation, then it had to be dire.

Pearl choked back a couple of tears and gently cupped Steven's cheeks, carefully stroked the bruise her slap left him like it was the greatest mistake she ever made, and perhaps it was in her eyes. She let out a deep breath and slowly revealed the truth to her surrogate son.

"Yellow . . . she disappeared overnight . . . we don't know how to contact her . . . she knows almost nothing about Earth outside the Crystal Temple . . . Citrine could find her and attack her . . . Yellow is too smart to go out without us and simply not return with zero explanation . . . she's in danger . . . that's the only thing we know so far . . . she wouldn't just run away . . . she wouldn't . . . she was so eager to learn about us and become one of us . . ."

Steven's mind boggled. A flurry of thoughts engulfed his still-sleepy conscious, some sad, some angry, some extremely worried. But most of them were questions . . . lots and lots of questions.

 _Where could she have gone? And why, just why she would need to sneak over there in the middle of the night without telling us when she knows that there are dangers out there and she can't defend herself?_

 _What if she's already encountered a corrupted Gem? Does she even know how to handle them correctly? It took so long for Peridot to figure them out . . ._

 _Worse . . . Citrine could find her—oh, what would she even do with her anyways?_

"What are we doing to find her?" was what Steven managed to spit out. He clutched his sweaty forehead, already dreading the worst.

"Well, apparently, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!" Pearl cried sharply, anger marring her face as she glared at Jasper and Garnet.

"I'm trying to analyze possible futures, but none of them turning out good," Garnet muttered, clearly frustrated with her future vision but desperate to not let it show. It seemed that her third eye liked to play with her sometimes, not providing the right path at perhaps the worst times.

"It could be possible she's not in any harm at all," Jasper mused. "What if she wanted to get some fresh night air and decided to linger outside for a while?"

"NO ONE CAN BE STUPID ENOUGH TO DO THAT AND SIMPLY NOT RETURN IN THE MORNING!" Pearl shrieked.

"Pearl, we're all worried," Amethyst groaned. "But just why are you getting so worked up over someone you tried to bubble when you first met her?"

"Amethyst," Garnet chided, placing a hand on Pearl's shoulder before the hysterical white Gem could make another peep. "This is . . . this is personal matters."

The purple Gem's mouth formed into a round "o" once she realized what exactly she was hitting. Biting her lip, she muttered, "Sorry."

Amethyst wasn't there to experience many things during the war—the things that Garnet and Pearl often mourn about when Steven wasn't in the room. She constantly felt out of place whenever that happened. Sure, she was able to avoid what was perhaps a thousand years of war and tragedy . . . but first there was Bismuth . . . and now there was this . . . right now she understood what Steven meant when he said he was locked out of many things that involved Gems and Homeworld. There were thing she would never understand either.

Pearl wrapped her arms around herself in order to stop quivering.

 _This can't be happening again._

 _This can't be happening again._

 _Is this fate? Is this some sort of punishment? Why, why is the past repeating itself? I get the chance to leave everything behind and start anew, and then that chance is yanked away from me! It's like the universe likes to laugh at me this way._

 _Yellow . . . I promised myself I would start a whole new path together with her . . . us together as the only two renegade Pearls . . . fighting against Homeworld . . . challenging the life they set before us in the past . . . Making sure that we won't be alone in the universe anymore . . . so I can tell myself I'm not alone anymore . . ._

Suddenly, Steven let out a groan. All the Gems whipped their heads around to see the young boy clutching his forehead his agony, quivering in his bed.

"Oh my goodness, what's wrong?" Pearl cried. Seeing Steven in pain seemed to temporarily snap her back to her old self, maternal and protective. She immediately cupped Steven's chin with her hands and gazed gently into his eyes.

"I'm starting to remember my dream," the young Gem groaned. "I . . . I heard her voice . . . and she was talking to her . . ."

"Who and who are you talking about?" Amethyst cried.

"Citrine . . ." Steven muttered, and everyone in the room paused for a deadly silent moment, their jaws frozen open and hands trembling. "In my dream—she was holding Yellow's gemstone . . . she must've poofed her—but why?—why would she do that?"

"Why is she doing it doesn't matter right now!" Pearl shrieked. She grasped Steven chin tightly, forcing him to stare directly at her frantic eyes. "We need you fall asleep so you can track her—figure out where she is taking her and whether or not she can defend herself! We need to save her!"

"D-do you think . . . there's a possibility Yellow could be hurt?" Steven stammered. Tears threatened to slip out of the corners of his eyes. He couldn't help it. The last words he uttered to Yellow before she disappeared was that he needed sleep and would prefer it if she would let him be. Now look at where that got him. If she got hurt . . . if Citrine was angry enough to shatter her . . . those last words would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Yellow _needed_ to come back.

She _needed_ to be okay.

Steven couldn't let her get hurt—or worse, die—because if so, then it would just be another Gem on the list of people who could've been saved but weren't because of him.

If she died, then Steven would _know_ that he was cursed. He couldn't protect people the way his mother did . . . couldn't do the things she failed to do. How would he be an effective Crystal Gem after that?

"She won't get hurt," Pearl said sharply, trembling as she did. "Just . . . please . . . try and find her . . . I won't be able to forgive myself if it happened again . . ."

Garnet placed a steady hand on the white Gem's shoulder as Amethyst and Jasper helped Steven into bed again and wrapped him in his blankets to ensure he would get to sleep quickly.

"Wake up as soon as you're sure you know where Yellow and Citrine are," Jasper commanded him, struggling to not show the tears in her eyes. "Make sure you wake up before she gets hurt . . ."

"Finding her is really important, Steven, you have to remember that," Amethyst said as calmly as she could, but even as the bleary sense of sleep began to overtake Steven, he knew that she was panicking inside. "I'm not sure what would happen to Pearl if something happened to Yellow . . ."

"And if something terrible happens, please remember we'll all share the blame together. None of us want to beat yourself up over this. We all should've done better. I know I should've," Garnet's was the last voice Steven heard before his weariness dragged him back into the realm of sleep.


	21. The Final Blow

Pale, blurred images washed over Steven's eyes, filling his ears with screeching incoherent noises and nearly making him go deaf. Over and over, he could hear Yellow's familiar, high-pitched voice screaming in pain, and a harsh _whoosh_ sound following right afterwards.

 _She was poofed._

 _She's now in the clutches of Citrine._

 _I let her leave the Temple._

 _I could've protected her._

 _Where are you, Yellow? Please tell me you're safe. Please tell me you figured out a way to escape her. Please tell me I haven't failed you too._

* * *

White-washed visions suddenly snapped into clarity, and found himself collapsed on a polished mineral floor with a sharp _thud_. A pair of pale lithe arms stretched out in front of him and pushed himself up into a sitting position, arms that certainly didn't belong to him.

It didn't take long for Steven to realize that he was witnessing everything through Yellow's point of view. He wasn't in control of her body though, which almost relieved Steven, knowing that he won't end up hurting or humiliating her, but also made him feel trapped and helpless, since he couldn't even shout a word in Yellow's head, scream out to let her know he was there, too.

It was like he was simply a member of the audience, witnessing a horrible tragedy.

Quickly, he was able to survey his surroundings, albeit through Yellow's limited vision. Several warp pads were laid out on the reflective floor, each and every one of them cracked beyond repair.

 _She's at the Galaxy Warp! I know where she is! I have to wake up now to tell everyone!_

But as he struggled to separate himself from Yellow's consciousness, he only ended up finding himself trapped in her field of vision, helpless. He tried to shout to himself in his head, but no matter what he did, he was still sleeping.

Was he trapped?

A beefy arm snatched Steven's—um, Yellow's—collar and held up, dangling him— _her_ —helplessly by the neck. It was really hard to distinguish Steven's point of view from Yellow's, since they were one and the same. Everything Yellow could hear and see, Steven could hear and see, and even though he was sleeping, safe in bed, Steven could feel the pressure around his neck the same way Yellow was feeling it, but it was more insufferable for Steven, since unlike Yellow, the young boy needed to breathe.

 _Calm down, Steven, you're not choking, you're safe in bed. You can take all the deep breaths you want while you're sleeping._ He was forced to repeat all this in his head as he was subconsciously dangling in the grasp of Citrine through Yellow's body.

Yellow was able to speak and act on her own perfectly without any of Steven's influence whatsoever, not even able to feel the fact that Steven was watching all her pain without her consent.

"Let me go," Yellow coughed out feebly, because even if she doesn't need air to sustain herself, she still needed it to speak. "I-if you're gonna to interrogate m-me, then at least do it while I can speak."

Citrine only tilted her head slightly in fascination. "Now that I can hear it up close, your voice is indeed rather annoying. I guess when you were in my Diamond's service, you were ordered to keep your mouth shut. Stars know, I would do the same if I was your master."

She suddenly pushed her face far too close to Yellow's—and Steven's—the Quartz's nose nearly in close contact to the Pearl's. Both Yellow—and Steven—squirmed in discomfort, especially since the salacious grin was something Steven was told to avoid at all costs by his father. Citrine's eyes suddenly crawled up and down Yellow's physical form, making the ensnared Gem flinch and shake even more. Yellow's discomfort was obvious but Citrine didn't seem to care one bit, making Steven feel a burning feeling at the bottom of his stomach that he recognized as anger.

It didn't matter that Citrine clearly tried to kill Steven at one point, what actually made the boy angry at her was the fact that she captured Yellow and is now harassing her, albeit silently.

His hope for Citrine to redeem herself for her crimes diminished slightly.

"I don't understand why you're so upset," Citrine whispered to Yellow in a somewhat seductive tone. Her voice moved closer to Yellow's ear, making the Pearl break out into an uncomfortable sweat. "If anything, I must've saved you from that disgusting defect. Tell me, what sort of things was she filling your head with?"

"Why would you ever want to know?" Yellow huffed, trying to grasp onto any form of dignity as Citrine's breath only inched closer and closer to her. She was suddenly grateful that her former Diamond was much more professional with her and felt a deep sense of pity for all those Pearls whose masters were . . . eager to own possess their new slaves.

"Because I feel sorry for everything that happened to you, of course," Citrine said matter-of-factly, as if she deserved a prize for saying such. "You, separated from your master, deprived of your purpose, standing on a planet that's going to be doomed soon." She suddenly grasped Yellow's chin, forcing her to make eye contact and feel her lustful sigh on her face. "You poor thing, if only there was someone out there to take care of you."

Yellow wrenched her face away from Citrine's, if only by a few inches, which was still much better than before, and hissed. "I don't want any of your pity. And what you did _certainly_ wasn't saving."

"Oh dear, I think the brainwashing already took its effect," Citrine purred, her grasp around Yellow's neck. "Don't tell me what the Renegade is marred with isn't contagious."

"You don't know anything about her," Yellow struggled to speak, Citrine's touch feeling suffocating against her. "And for the last time, she's not defective."

"But that's the only way to distinguish the two of you anyways," Citrine shrugged. "Count the differences between you and her, and you're going to run out of fingers, even if you shape-shift. The spear she carries, all the powers she displays, it's not anything remarkable or blessed, and it's only proof that she is damaged beyond repair. I bet when she reigned over the Rebellion, Rose Quartz forcibly demented her Pearl so she can have a soldier that is both savage and willing to commit suicide if she is in danger."

"Pearl is not a tool!" Yellow shouted, not afraid to spit in Citrine's face as she did so. "She never was! It's the rest of all the Pearls on Homeworld that are tools. No, in fact, we're not even useful like tools are, you treated us more like frilly dolls."

"But isn't that all you know how to do," Citrine pointed out, not even fazed by Yellow's hysteria. "If she's been training you how to fight and defend, she's only spreading her delusion and infecting you with it. She might say it's glorious and revolutionary, but don't you feel uncomfortable doing it? Don't you realize that both your body and mind are too fragile for it, that things like ruthlessness and sacrifice are too frightening for you to do? Can you really imagine yourself doing all the things she does?"

Yellow bit her lip. Those were the questions that buzzed through her mind ever since she started her training. The thought of charging into battle and sacrificing herself still made her feel like a coward. Was Pearl's true reason for fighting was because Rose Quartz needed her to serve a different purpose?

"Singing and performing, pleasing your master, and belonging to someone who'll fight all your battles for you, isn't that what you're comfortable with?" Citrine continued, pressing herself against Yellow again in that disgustingly lewd way. "Don't you wish to return to that harmless routine, finally belong to someone again? In fact, even if Yellow Diamond has already found herself another Pearl, I'd be happy enough to claim you as mine. And if you refuse, I'd guess I have no choice but to shatter you along with all the other Crystal Gems, if you happen to be just as mad as the Renegade Pearl. What would you rather be: a deluded soldier discarded of her former worth or a Pearl who has regained her purpose again?"

Steven felt like shouting at Yellow, to clutch onto her and beg her to not leave them, to not listen to Citrine. He felt like screaming himself hoarse trying to convince her to stay a Crystal Gem? Was everything he said to Yellow going to go to waste? Was all of this going to end up the same as Eyeball? Was he going to be forced to bubble Yellow alongside Citrine if she accepted her offer?

 _Yellow . . . you can't do this to us . . . please remember we love you . . . Pearl trained you, I protected you, Amethyst and Garnet and everyone else has accepted you as a Crystal Gem. If you leave us . . . I wouldn't know what to do with myself._

 _Because if you did leave, it means I've failed again._

Unbeknownst to Steven, his words echoed in Yellow's head.

 _Steven, is that you?_

There was no response. The young boy's thoughts were only a faint transmittance, and now it has already faded into static. But still, even though they resonated inside of her.

She remembered how much effort Steven put into defending her, into caring for her, even though she was bratty and difficult and certainly undeserving of everything he did. She remembered how much Pearl revealed to her, sharing her grief to someone who once sided with her greatest enemy, that she forced herself to reopen her wounds about a fellow Pearl she lost in order to convince Yellow to become a warrior.

 _Blue Pearl . . . who belonged once belonged Blue Diamond . . . she shared the same hesitance to fight . . . but she did it all for freedom._

Yellow has never met that other Pearl ever in her life, not even being made yet when she made her sacrifice . . . but she still imagined what she would say if she could witness what was happening right now.

 _Even if you could never be on the same level as Pearl, even if you never get over the fear of fighting, even if you end up being a hindrance to the Crystal Gems and get shattered rebelling against Homeworld, all of that would be better than being a doll, a possession, someone shiny and sparkly and replaceable. Anything . . . anything is better than being the perfect Pearl . . . because then it proves that you really are as empty and passive as they want you to be._

Yellow slowly raised her chin upwards, locking her eyes with Citrine's wolfish gaze, breathing slowly and calmly.

"I'll be the soldier."

"What?" Citrine gasped, the confidence in her voice suddenly abandoning her.

"I'd rather be the soldier. I'd rather be the Gem who lost everything familiar to her, thrust into a world she doesn't understand, forced to cooperate with Gems who once threatened her, the Gem who doesn't what she's fighting for or even she'd end up useful, the Gem who might even die with everything else on this planet, outnumbered and destroyed by her former Homeworld. _I'd rather be anything but your toy! DO YOU HEAR ME? I'D RATHER DO ANYTHING, EVEN BE THE WEAKEST FIGHTER IN THE ENTIRE GALAXY THAN BE THE BEST PEARL, ESPECIALLY IF IT MEANS TO BELONG WITH SOMEONE AS DISGUSTING AS YOU!"_

Yellow's sharp scream finally shocked Citrine enough to make her drop her; the fright and loss of control over the situation forcing her to take a step back and contemplate everything that was happening.

Sprawled on the floor, Yellow finally took notice of the glowing warmth on her chest, flickering like it was desperate to reassure her. Catching her breath and needing something to calm down the raging emotion inside her, her hand clasped onto her gem, her fingers tightening around it, lest she might have a panic attack.

The glow around her gem manifesting into something tangible, and Yellow's eyes widened.

Her fingers suddenly grab onto something tangible and its surface grows smooth and cool to the touch. It took a few deep breaths before Yellow pulled it out completely and found herself grasping onto a solid beam of pure light. The light faded away to reveal an elegantly carved hilt that her fingers instinctively curled around and a long tapering blade that was as thin and delicate as a needle.

Yellow's weapon . . . a beautiful rapier. This was what marked her as a rebel, a Crystal Gem . . . as a renegade Pearl.

"What is this?" Citrine gasped hoarsely, blinking rapidly like she thought it would wake her up from this miracle.

"I think this means you should leave," Yellow said flatly, clearly sickened by Citrine's mere presence, still remembering her perverted touching earlier. "Or else you will have to answer to me."

The Quartz clenched her teeth and pulled out her sleek scythe. "And to think I found you attractive before . . . I guess I really am forced to waste such a perfectly formed Pearl."

Yellow narrowed her eyes. "Please don't call me perfect, especially if you're going to call me the perfect Pearl. It's clear that perfection is not I strive for. I learned what I should truly seek . . . freedom from Gems like you."

* * *

Just when the two Gems lunged towards each other, Steven was suddenly ripped away from the scene and found himself wrapped in the warmth of his bed, sweating and panting hard. He immediately felt the tight grasp of Pearl's arms wrapping around him.

"Steven, did you find her? You were twisting in your sleep the entire time we watched you!" Pearl shrieked.

"We're . . . we're going to the Galaxy Warp . . ." was all that Steven choked out.

"What? Steven, please tell us you're okay," Garnet breathed out, trembling slightly at the sight of Steven quaking.

"That's not important," Steven cried, pulling himself out of Pearl's embrace and jumping out of the bed, despite nearly falling on his face doing so. "Yellow is at the Galaxy Warp right now . . . she managed to wiggle out of Citrine trap but she's now fighting against her! And worse, she's all alone! We're going there right now to defend her! Who knows what Citrine might do to Yellow, or worse, what Yellow might do to Citrine?"

Without a moment to hesitate, each and every one of the Crystal Gems scrambled onto the Warp Pad and immediately teleported to the Galaxy Warp. Pearl was nearly on the verge of a panic attack the entire way.

The bluish light that engulfed them dissipated and the Crystal Gems' feet landed on the firm floor of the Galaxy Warp. But the scene they arrived at was not pretty.

Crouched over a once-shining orange gemstone was Yellow, who was breathing raggedly with her hair disheveled and torn out in a few places. Trembling upon the weak point of the gem was the tip of a thin, elegant blade, the fingers grasping at the hilt angry and anxious.

 _Citrine . . ._

"Yellow, please stop, don't do it!" Steven screamed at the top of his lungs . . . but it was too late.

Citrine's gemstone splintered into a million pieces beneath Yellow's sword, the final crack echoing in Steven's ears.


	22. Epilogue

Floating within the bubble that Steven held in his hands was a shimmering mass of orange shards. With the way they twinkled underneath the Boiling Room's reddish atmosphere, you could almost believe they still held some form of life inside them.

But Steven knew Citrine was dead.

And beside him was the one who murdered her.

"Steven . . . I didn't know what I was doing . . . once I poofed her, I was so overwhelmed and then I remembered all the things she said to me . . . all those times she threatened me and made me flinch . . . rage consumed me and once I came to, it was already too late and—"

"Yellow . . ." Steven whispered. "It's okay."

"IT'S NOT OKAY!" the former servant shrieked, and once Steven finally turned to her, he saw tears crawling down her face, falling into a puddle beneath their feet.

"Yellow . . ."

"This is what I was afraid of, Steven," Yellow's voice trembled. She choked back a couple of sobs before continuing. "Back on Homeworld, I saw things like this all the time, Gems being shattered for being disobedient or rebellious, and back then, all I thought was how glad I was that it wasn't me that was beneath the blade. But now . . . I now realize no one deserves to be executed like that and that the death penalty shouldn't be reserved for anyone . . . that no one has the right to decide whose life is more valuable than others and that taking another's life is something no one should have to do."

A chuckle suddenly slips past her lips. Yellow's teeth clench as more laughter bubbles up. The streams of tears grow heavier as Yellow's laughter grows more and more creepy.

"Yellow!" Steven cries.

Choking with both sobs and laughter, Yellow cried, "Look at what a hypocrite I am! I don't want you to forgive me! I never want you to! Stars, please promise me you'll never forgive me, Steven. Promise me you will hate me for the rest of your life. Please promise you'll never let me forget my sin! Let the other Crystal Gems know that as well. Let Pearl know that I won't ever burden her with my sinfulness ever again. You'll do that for me, right Steven?"

Steven immediately wrapped his arms around Yellow when she dropped to her knees on the floor, sobbing hysterically. Yellow shuddered as she kept howling her apologies. The young boy's shirt grew wet and stained from his friend's hysteria but he didn't care one bit.

"You know I can't do that, right?" Steven whispered.

"You should. You really should," Yellow managed to squeak. Her voice was understandably hoarse after her huge fit.

"Yellow, I've been learning a lot of things about the Crystal Gems that I never bothered to know when I first moved into the Temple," Steven murmured. "I learned that even if the Crystal Gems are supposed to be protectors of this Earth, they've not complete heroes. At least, not like the kind of heroes I first believed them to be . . . not the kind that I believed my mother to be."

"Steven . . ."

The young boy's grasp grew tighter. "I learned that there are some really bad people out there, those who are far worse than the monsters the Gems fight every day. Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do and no one is simply born evil . . . even if someone hates everything and everyone around them, there is something they must treasure and want to protect. I know that. And ever since I learned that, I wanted to able help them, to keep them from going down a road of destruction. But even if I hope, even if I try all I want to, sometimes people become so corrupted that they refuse to change. They refuse to listen to me and they refuse to let me help them.

"And none of that is my fault. I shouldn't beat myself up over things like that. It's not in my control.

"Sometimes really bad people have good motives. Sometimes really good people need to do bad things so they can keep doing good things."

"Steven . . ."

Yellow could feel Steven's grip grow deathly tight. She wanted to tell him that it hurt but the boy seemed to be very overwhelmed at the moment. In fact, she could tell that he was plagued by terrible things, too. His eyes were clenched shut, with tears forming at the edges. His arms were trembling as they tightened around her.

"Steven . . ."

"Yellow, you're not the only one of us who had to do bad things. Don't you remember what Pearl had to do in order to fight for her freedom? Do you think the war was all glory and revolution? Sure, neither of us was there but the Crystal were forced to do . . . things. And that certainly hasn't changed. Even if you know we're the good guys, there's no such thing as completely good. I've been forced to learn that over the years."

"B-but Steven, you shouldn't just forgive me all that easily! It's not right. It's not fair! Just because we're friends doesn't excuse anything! I'm a murderer!"

"SO WAS MY MOM!

Everything suddenly went silent. Yellow of course knew that Rose Quartz killed Pink Diamond; she knew it was the real reason that Yellow Diamond was fighting against Earth. Back when she worked for her . . . Yellow sympathized with her over that. She valued all the times her former Diamond was vulnerable around her, it made her feel important. But now she knew there was another Pearl taking her place, doing all the same things she once did. She wasn't important at all.

Yellow also knew that it would mean death for her to bring up Pink Diamond. It was the same on Homeworld as well. She didn't think the Gem who once tyrannized Earth was such a fragile spot for Steven, though. He didn't even know her.

"She was forced to kill someone. She took a life and sealed it away forever. But at the same time, she saved thousands of lives on Earth. She committed a single sin for so many people, in order to keep this entire planet alive. I know it's awful to say and everything but . . . she saved this planet and killed only one Gem in the process. That was what she had to do. You killed one Gem, but she was going to claim all of our lives. One life for eight lives, including your own, and I know it was terrible to do, and I don't think I'll ever completely forget it . . . but it was what you had to do. And maybe one day, it'll be what I have to do. But this is a war we're fighting, and there will be sacrifices. And I'll need to be prepared to do what we have to do."

"Steven . . ."

The boy's tight embrace grew stronger, but at the same time, it grew softer. His gentle hands ran through Yellow's disheveled hair and he nuzzled his face into her neck. His skin felt so warm compared to hers.

"Steven . . . are you actually forgiving me? Didn't I tell you not to do that?"

"Hey, since you don't have to follow my orders, I don't have to follow yours. I know you're going to say you don't deserve forgiveness, but I know that's not true and soon enough, you're going to forgive yourself. You'll find the courage to do that, like you found the courage to fight."

"Steven . . . will it be horrible for me to say that I might not be able to fight for a while? I'm not sure if I'll able to hold my weapon knowing that it . . . you know . . ."

"Don't worry, it is okay. Take all the time you need. I know it will happen eventually, that you will heal from all of this, and once it happens, I know it's going to be great."

* * *

 **A Few Months Later**

"So let me get this straight," Sheena blurted out as her bright green gaze switched between both Pearl and Yellow. "You two are both Pearls? When you first mentioned this to me, Pearl, I kinda thought that it meant Gems are separated into categories like humans sometimes, but . . . I did not expect this."

"My stars, humans can come with pink hair?" Yellow cried. "If I knew that, then I would be more eager to meet them!" She quickly brushed her fingers against Sheena's arm, eliciting a small shriek from the surprised human. "How come your skin doesn't seem to coordinate with your hair?"

"Hey, as much as it would be cool to have my entire body match my hair, I can't do that," Sheena chuckled. She reached out and lightly poked Yellow's nose. "For the record, though, even if you're almost identical to Pearl, you really can't beat her cuteness. That's something that only belongs to my Pearl."

"Since when did she let you claim her?" Yellow shrieked, quickly turning to Pearl. "Do you know how hypocritical that is? And you said you belonged to no one!"

"I don't," Pearl cried, raising her hands to defend herself. "That's not what she meant!"

"Wait, what does she mean?" Sheena inquired. As calm as she tries to act, she really couldn't wrap her head around everything Pearl tries to explain to her.

"I'll explain it to you later," Pearl reassured her girlfriend, which had to be at least the 200th time she said that at this point.

"I never knew that you and Pearl would look so much alike," Greg chuckled, nervously scratching his hair. It took Pearl so long to get used to him, he can't expect Yellow to do the same, right?

"You are the 'Dad' Steven talked about, right?" Yellow asked.

"Right," Greg replied, his initial anxiety wearing away. "Steven told me so much about you. Isn't Pearl teaching you how to fight like her? You know, be a Renegade and everything?"

"She was doing that initially but . . ."

The middle-aged man immediately flushed bright red. "O-oh man, I can't believe I said that! Please forget that! I shouldn't have said anything! Man oh man, looks like I messed up my first impression already. I might have an unlucky streak with Pearls, now that I think about it. P-please forget I said that, too! I didn't mean to be racist—um, Gem-ist, something like that, anyway . . ."

"It's okay," Yellow squeaked, blushing from embarrassment as well. "Besides, that happened countless Earth rotations ago, I don't know why I can't seem to let that go . . ."

"Hey, I know sometimes you can't forget the terrible things you did in the past," Greg said softly. "I know that it might not matter to you since you never knew her or anything but . . . Rose went through the same thing you did—even after thousands of years had passed, she worried that she was unworthy of being around such wonderful people when she had done such horrible things, but I told her that it didn't matter. I loved the person she was now, not the person she was thousands of years ago."

"Thanks . . . I really needed to hear that," Yellow whispered.

Interacting with humans proved to be an easier task than it seemed to be and eventually, Sheena and Greg waved goodbye and left the Temple, the pink-haired woman speeding away on an motorcycle and Steven's father heading back to his van.

"You made a great first impression," Pearl sighed happily. "Better yet, you warmed up to them faster than I ever did. Perhaps one day, you'll be comfortable with exploring more human areas."

"Not immediately, r-right?" Yellow squeaked.

"We'll take things slow," Pearl chuckled in response. She felt relieved that Yellow was just as socially awkward as she was.

"Pearl . . . talking with Greg made me realize something," Yellow said slowly.

"What?"

"I don't want to spend thousands of years dwelling on the same thing over and over, I want to able to move forward like you all did," Yellow said softly. "I know that I'll never be able to forget what I did, and neither will you and everyone else, but we need to progress onward, especially since another battle might be brewing soon and I want to be useful again."

"Are you actually going to—"

"Yes. I hope I can, at least."

With a sharp exhale, Yellow cupped her hands around her gem. With a bright flash of light and an audible gleam of sound, her fingers wrapped around an elegantly carved hilt and with another deep breath, slowly pulled it out.

The thin blade tapered towards the floor beneath Yellow and Pearl as both of them stared awestruck.

"It's beautiful, just like I remember it," Pearl sighed. She took a deep breath before adding, "Blue would be very proud."

"Yeah, I guess she is. After all, we're adding onto the Renegade Pearl legacy, aren't we? And we won't it end without a fight."

* * *

 **A/N: And that concludes the Renegade Pearl duology. Thank you for following this story all the way through, even though it certainly no longer follows canon. And look, Blue Pearl is alive (sorry for killing you, Blue, I promise I won't do it again)! And Yellow Pearl knows her, they might be friends (or girlfriends, if you wanna hope like me)! Let's keep on hoping that's not their last appearance and let's hope that I'll be able to write them again (with Blue Pearl alive because I truly regret what I've done).**


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